THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF, 



WHAT IT DOES FOR US 



BY ^ 

HERMANN LIEB. 



The tranquility of society and the security of the individual arc 
cecured by justice; the harmony and good-will of one man toward another 
are cherished by equity. Crabbe. 






«v 




CHICAGO: 
Published by the Author, 

1888. 

" v 



V 



ftF'i r f 



Copyrighted, 1887, 

BY 

HERMANN LIEB. 



Rights of Translation Reserved. 



Donohuk & Henneberry, Printers and Finders, Chicago* 






CO 



TO THE 

HON. ABRAM S. HEWITT, 

The Most Earnest, Able and Consistent 

Tariff Reformer of the Country, 

This volume is 
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 

BY THE AUTHOR. 

Chicago, November, 1887. 



CONTENTS. 



Preface. 

introduction. 

Historical Sketch. 

General Effect of Protection. 

Effect of Protection on Farmers. 
The Home Market. 

Effect of Protection on the Wages of Labor. 

Effect of Protection on Labor in Protected Industries. 
Our Pauper Labor. 

Effect of Protection Upon Unprotected Labor. 

Effect of Protection on Manufacturers. 
Free Raw Material. 
Monopoly. 

Conclusions. 



PREFACE, 



T I THIRTY years ago, upon becoming a citizen of the 
-*- United States, I found public attention completely 
absorbed in the question of African slavery, all eco- 
nomic questions being entirely dismissed from the public 
mind. 

This question, and all others relating to it, having 
been finally disposed of, the people are now beginning 
to turn their attention to the less sentimental and 
more practical question of taxation. 

"While every cause which led to the rupture be- 
tween the two sections of the country has been brought 
to final settlement, and industry and trade long since 
returned to the channels of peace; while nearly two- 
thirds of the national debt has been extinguished, and 
the treasury is filled to overflowing, — the oppressive 
war taxes, imposed in the hour of the Nation's peril, 
remain undiminished. Of these taxes, those on luxuries, 
but little used by the poor, are the least burdensome; 
those upon the necessaries of life, mostly paid by the 
poor, are the most burdensome. 

The representatives of monopoly, and of a privileged 
class, propose to remove the former and to retain the 
latter, 

5 



PREFACE. 

If the student of American history will compare 
the grievances the early American colonists complained 
of against England, he will find they were not more 
serious and not so oppressive as those inflicted to-day 
upon the unsuspicious American people by a class of 
men "to the manor born," and while the injustice of 
the former reacted upon a foreign country, the latter 
threatens disaster to our own. 

In the belief that it is the duty of every citizen 
of this republic to use his best efforts in trying to take 
care of his country, I have written this small book. 

HEEMANN LIEB. 

Chicago, Oct. 15, 1887. 



HSTTKODITCTION. 



" The oppressiveness of a tax is not to be measured by the insensibility of 
the people on whose shoulders it is laid." 

PROTECTION A TAX. 

SECURITY in life, property and liberty is the first 
requisite of every American citizen, and if there is 
any meaning in the word protection when used in connec- 
tion with our governmental machinery, it must necessarily 
convey the idea that the security we are now enjoying is 
insufficient, and that we are threatened by some common 
danger against which the government is asked to protect us. 

If there is any such danger threatening the people of 
this country, there is no question but that the government, 
being the general agency of the great American society, 
constituted for the very purpose of protecting its mem- 
bers from injury in person and property, is in duty bound 
to afford such protection. 

We are all in favor of this sort of protection and are 
ready and willing, as an equivalent for such protection, 
to contribute a just and equitable share of our earnings to 
the government. 

It is, however, the only form of protection the govern- 
ment can justly and legally bestow. To do more than 
that, to give greater protection to all, or bestow greater 
benefits upon all, and do it justly and equally for every 
citizen, is a mathematical impossibility. 

The logical sequence from these incontrovertible prem- 
ises is, that every proposition on the part of the law-mak- 
ing power to do more is a proposition to do it unequally ; 

7 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

to confer more than the benefits enjoyed by the mass 
of the people, or additional favors upon a portion or a 
distinct class ; and as such additional favors cannot be 
given by the government directly, except by way of sub- 
sidy out of the United States Treasury, it must be done 
indirectly through the insidious way of special legislation ; 
that is, by creating a system of unequal taxation. 

If it were generally understood, if the majority of 
the American people were convinced of the fact, that 
this protective system necessarily implied unjust and un- 
equal taxation, they would not tolerate it for an instant. 

Well aware of this state of public sentiment, some of 
the advocates of this system evince a disposition to beg 
the question of taxation, and to bluntly assert "that a 
duty on import laid for the purpose of protection is not 
a tax." When it is considered that the importer who 
pays the tax at the custom house charges the extra amount 
upon the goods, and the American consumer eventually 
pays this extra charge, this assertion that protection is not 
a tax shows the implicit confidence the protectionists 
have in the stupendous credulity of their victims. 

Of course, the laying of tariff taxes is perfectly legal 
and proper as long as they are laid for the purpose of 
raising revenue for the government. The government of 
Great Britain raises nearly one hundred million of dollars 
of her revenue from four articles, to-wit : Tobacco, wine, 
spirits and tea, which are in the main not produced in the 
kingdom, and when produced the import tax is as nearly as 
possible equal to the internal revenue tax paid upon simi- 
lar articles by the home producer. Thus, a tax upon im- 
port does not necessarily imply a tax for protection. The 
moment, however, the purpose of raising revenue for the 
government is lost sight of, and import taxes are adjusted 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

and laid with the expressed or implied purpose of giving 
private enterprises special advantages, or protection 
against competition, that moment the government lends 
its taxing power to private concerns. It stands guard, as 
it were, with its army and navy, if necessary, over these 
special interests, and commands the consumers of the 
country to buy there, no matter what the quality and price 
may be, and, therefore, every dollar exacted from the 
consumer for home commodities, enhanced in price on ac- 
count of such special protection, is a tax — a tax more un- 
just, more oppressive and tyrannical than an ordinary 
tax unequally levied, because, in the case of a tax for 
protection the money does not go to the government 
treasury but into the pockets of a preferred class. 

This last point should be well kept in mind, and the 
people should thoroughly understand that protection can 
be nothing else than a tax — an indirect tax, but a tax. 
They all know what taxes are ; they pay their taxes upon 
real estate and personal property direct to the collector, 
who hands them a receipt containing in dollars and cents 
the exact amount of their tax. But everybody does not 
seem to know, and a great many do not care to know, 
what tariff taxes are, while others imagine that the money 
collected by the government upon imported goods is all 
the taxes paid in that way, and that these taxes are paid 
by those only who buy imported goods. 

If the consumers generally understood that commodi- 
ties manufactured in this country are, for the greater 
part, enhanced in price nearly equal to the amount of the 
duty paid upon similar commodities imported, or forty 
per cent in the average, they would not hesitate in de- 
manding that this unjust and unequal system of taxation 
be either promptly reformed, or, that a revenue method 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

which could be perverted into an instrument for the 
gratification of individual rapacity be eradicated, root 
and branch. The assertion that protection ultimately 
leads to cheapness has been answered, " that it were best 
to begin with cheapness." 

But the trouble is that everybody does not know these 
facts, and the deceptive word " protection " does its stu- 
pefying work. 

It is this torpid state of public opinion which causes 
Mr. Blaine, the foremost advocate of protection in this 
country, in his " Twenty Years in Congress," exultingly 
to remark: "Mr. Hamilton was the foremost financier 
in this country who understood that it is easier to collect 
ten dollars by an indirect tax than to collect one dollar 
by direct levy." 

Mr. Blaine's conclusions are correct. It is easier to 
collect money through this insidious way, but will he 
contend that it is easier to pay? 

It is always easier to take surreptitiously that which 
is not due. The attempted collection of ten dollars direct 
taxes, where only one dollar is due, would probably meet 
with difficulty, and, as the ten dollars can be secured easier 
by an indirect way, Mr. Blaine recommends that way as 
the acme of financiering-statesmanship. 

[It is not in a partisan sense that we now or shall here- 
after mention the name of Mr. Blaine. Principles are 
immutable, but governmental theories originate with and 
are shaped b} r public men. The open declarations and 
statements of these leading men are accepted by millions 
of voters as their political dogma, and, therefore, their 
names cannot be disassociated from their policies. It 
will not be denied that to-day Mr. Blaine is the foremost 
representative of the protection theory in the United 



INTKODUCTION. 11 

States, and that his statements upon this theory are of a 
more authoritative character than those of any other liv- 
ing man.] 

"Such a system of taxation," said Mr. Kasson, the 
able representative to Congress from Iowa, as early as 
1866, and before he had changed his views upon that 
question, " is a simple system of robbery ; taking from 
one home industry and paying it to another. If we go 
on in the present plan of adding to the cost of everything 
we produce, there is not another country on the face of 
the earth that will contribute one cent to enrich the peo- 
ple of the United States, or to buy a single article of our 
production. It is an attempt against the law of Provi- 
dence, to force the people of this country to pay more for 
what they need than the laws of Providence would other- 
wise require. 5 ' 

Again the late Emory Storrs, the great Republican 
orator of the West, thus tersely describes this insidious 
tax : " Finally, what is tariff? It is a tax. It is nothing 
less than and nothing but a tax. It is a tax which we 
do not pay to the government, but to the manufacturer 
for his private enrichment ; for where protection begins 
revenue ceases. The consumer is impoverished, the gov- 
ernment is not aided. Shall this system be continued? 
This question w T e must answer. We may dodge it and 
evade it for a time, but the millions of men who pro- 
tected the Nation in the hour of sore peril with their lives 
demand that this question shall be answered. I am for 
myself prepared to answer it. My answer is : Our soil is 
free, our men are free, our thought is free, our speech is 
free, our trade shall be free ! " 

As to the meaning and purport of the word tax there 
can be no misunderstanding. It is a burden laid by 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

the government for public purposes. Webster defines 
it as "a charge, especially a pecuniary burden, which 
is imposed by authority. A levy of any kind made upon 
the property for the support of a government." 

The authority of Congress to levy taxes is defined in 
Section 8, Article VII, of the Constitution of the United 
States, as follows : " The Congress shall have power to 
levy and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises ; to 
pay the debts and provide for the common defense and 
general welfare of the United States." 

It will not successfully be maintained that the public 
debt is being paid, or the common defense and general 
welfare of the United States promoted, by confiscat- 
ing the property of one citizen under the tariff power 
and giving it as a bounty or gratuity to another citizen, 
under the pretense that it is necessary to protect him in 
carrying on his private business. Legal authorities and 
judicial decisions are uniform in their opinion that no tax 
can be legally levied except for public purposes. 

Judge Thomas Cooley, formerly of the Supreme Court 
of the State of Michigan, and Professor of Law of the 
University of that State, in his work on "Principles of 
Constitutional Law," thus defines the limits of taxation 
under the Constitution of the United States : 

" Constitutionally, a tax can have no other basis than 
the raising of revenue for public purposes, and whatever 
governmental exaction has not this basis is tyrannical 
and unlawful. A tax on imports, therefore, the purpose 
of which is not to raise revenue but to discourage and 
indirectly prohibit some particular import for the bene- 
fit of some home manufacturer, may well be questioned 
as being merely colorable and therefore not warranted by 
constitutional principles," 



INTSObtJCTIOtf. 13 

In a decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, concerning the legality of a tax levied by the 
city of Topeka upon the authority of the Legislature of 
the State of Kansas, for the purpose of paying the bonds 
given to a bridge company, as an inducement to locate 
their shops in that city, Judge Miller says : " Of all the 
powers conferred on the government that of taxation is 
the most liable to abuse. Given a purpose or object for 
which taxation may be lawfully used, and the extent of 
its exercise is in its very nature unlimited." And further : 
" This power can as readily be employed against one class 
of individuals and in favor of another, so as to ruin the 
one class and give unlimited wealth and prosperity to the 
other, if there are no implied limitations of the use for 
which the power may be exercised." " To lay with one 
hand the power of the government on the property of the 
citizen and with the other bestow it upon favored individ- 
uals to aid private enterprises and build up private fort- 
unes, is none the less robbery because it is done under the 
form of law and is called taxation. This is not legislation. 
It is a decree under legislative forms. Nor is it taxation. 
Beyond a cavil, there can be no lawful taxation which is 
not laid for public purpose." 

And again, in an opinion of the Supreme Court of the 
State of Maine, the following occurs : " No public exigency 
can require private spoliation for the private benefit of 
favored individuals. If the citizen is protected in his 
property by the state against the public, much more is he 
against private rapacity. It is the taking that constitutes 
the wrong, no matter how taken." 

And again, the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa, 
in Hanson vs. Yernon, held : " No authority or even dictum 
can be found which asserts that there can be any legiti- 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

mate taxation when the money to be raised does not go 
into the public treasury. If there is any proposition 
about which there is an entire and uniform weight of 
judicial authority, it is that taxes are to be imposed for 
the use of the people and not for the special benefit of 
individuals. While the state is bound to protect all, it 
ceases to give that just protection when it affords undue 
advantage or special and exclusive privileges to particular 
individuals at the cost and charge of the rest of the 
community." 

Just as soon as the people become conscious of these 
fundamental truths, there will no doubt be a sudden end 
made to special privileges to a preferred class. 

" It is a curiosity of despotism that the people are too 
often unconscious of their slavery, as they are also 
unconscious of bad laws. A wise and just government 
measures its duties not by what the people will bear 
without a murmur, but by what is most for their wel- 
fare." 



HISTOKICAL SKETCH. 



To comprehend the present we must know the past. To conceive the 
future, we must understand the present. 

ON examining this great question of industrial and 
commercial liberty from an historical standpoint, it 
will be found that its suppression, or the uncalled-for 
interference in its natural course, has caused many wars, 
and tliat, indeed, the main cause of our own revolutionary 
war and consequent independence was the result of such 
interference. 

The foremost American historian, Bancroft, says upon 
this subject: "American independence, like the great 
rivers of the country, had many sources ; but the head- 
spring that colored all the stream was the Navigation 
Act." 

England's unparalleled prosperity and greatness date 
not from the time when her ministers and lawmakers 
deemed it their province to attend to the private business 
of her merchants and manufacturers, but from the period 
when her statesmen had made the discovery that the 
" commercial let-alone policy " was the best. In our case, 
it is questionable whether the American colonies would 
ever have deemed it necessary, or even desirable, to sever 
their allegia-nce from the mother country had that dis- 
covery been made a century and a half ago. The truth 
of the old proverb, "it is an ill wind that blows no- 
body any good," is strikingly illustrated in the case of 
British rule in the American colonies ; and it may well be 
said, that the people of these United States owe their 

15 



16 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

commanding position among the nations of the world to 
the short-sightedness and avarice of their English rulers. 

From the very commencement of the colonies the 
mother country watched the development of her offspring 
with a jealous, unmotherly eye, and, instead of encour- 
aging the spirit of enterprise which was the natural out- 
growth of prevailing conditions, the British Parliament 
enacted one law after another with the avowed object of 
crippling the efforts of the colonists in the fields of com- 
merce and industry, in order to keep them in safe sub- 
jection to her own merchants and manufacturers. 

The colonies were not permitted to trade with any 
other country, and their cotton, their iron, their wool 
could not be manufactured into commodities here, but had 
to be shipped to England in English ships for that purpose. 

No American colony could purchase its silk from 
France, its tea from China, or its cloth from Germany, 
but had to buy in England, although at higher prices. 

In 1632 an act was passed prohibiting the " exportation 
of hats from the colonies, and to restrain the number of 
apprentices taken by hatmakers." An act of 1750 pro- 
hibited, on penalty of £200 sterling, "the erection of 
any mill for slitting or rolling iron, or any plating forge 
to work with a tilt hammer, or any furnace for making 
steel in any of the colonies." At the same time encour- 
agement was given to export pig and bar iron to England 
for her manufactures. The exportation of all wool or 
woolen goods of American product from one province to 
another by water or by land, on horseback or in cart 
was strictly prohibited. By the Statute of 1763, nothing 
was allowed " to be imported into a British colony except 
in English-built ships, whereof the master and three- 
fourths of the crew were English." 



.HISTORICAL SKETCH. 17 

But all these restrictions notwithstanding, commerce 
and trade gradually and steadily increased. To England 
the colonies exported lumber of all sorts, hemp, flax, 
pitch, tar, oil, rosin, copper ore, pig and bar iron, whale 
fins, tobacco, rice, fish, indigo, flax seed, bee's wax, raw 
silk ; and they also built many ships which found a ready 
market in the mother country. 

But the importation of British goods, in consequence 
of the course pursued by the English government, was 
still much greater than the amount of the export to Eng- 
land, and this balance against the colonies had to be paid 
in gold, realized from the trade with the West India 
Islands. 

The difficulties to be overcome, however, seemed rather 
to stimulate than discourage the early settlers in the 
manufacture of their own commodities ; as, for instance, 
the coarser kinds of cutlery, coarse cloth, both linen and 
woolen, hats, paper, shoes, household furniture, etc., were 
manufactured, to a considerable extent, as early as 1738 ; 
of course, the establishments were small and their pro- 
ducts insufficient to supply the demand. 

During the war of the revolution the commerce of the 
United States was interrupted, not only with Great 
Britain, but in a great measure w r ith the rest of the world. 
The greater part of the shipping belonging to the colonies 
was destroyed by the enemy, or perished by the natural 
process of decay. Under these circumstances the people 
of this country were thrown upon their own resources for 
the production of all kinds of commodities. 

The zeal, ingenuity and industry of the people fur- 
nished the country with articles of prime necessity and, 
in a measure, supplied the place of a foreign market. 
Such was the progress in arts under this inherent stimulus, 



18 THE PROTECTIVE TABIEF. 

after the return of peace, that when uninterrupted inter- 
course with England was again opened, some articles which 
before were imported altogether were found so well and 
so abundantly manufactured at home that their importa- 
tion was stopped. 

But with the disappearance of the common danger the 
commonness of interests also ceased. The States grew, to 
a great extent, commercially independent of each other 
and the old jealousies were revived. Massachusetts had a 
navigation act and levied import duties, and other States 
followed her example. The restrictions and prohibitions 
imposed on American commerce were vexatious and 
destructive, and while Congress had power to enter into 
treaties of reciprocity it could retaliate in any way where 
its offer of trade was refused. 

From 1783 until the adoption of the Federal constitu- 
tion, it was generally recognized that Congress should 
have power to regulate commercial relations between the 
States and foreign powers ; but the supposed interests of 
the different States presented an effectual bar against ac- 
tion. These obstacles were removed by the adoption of 
the constitution. No sooner had the first Federal Con- 
gress met than a resolution for taxing imports was 
introduced by Mr. Madison, for the purpose of giving 
some resources to the almost empty treasury. It was 
during the debate which followed that Mr. Hartley, a rep 
resentative from Pennsylvania, said : " I think it is 
both politic and just that the fostering hand of the na- 
tional government should be extended to all such manu- 
factures as will tend to national utility." This was the 
key-note of our protection system. 

This first tariff bill, which, after a lengthy discussion, 
was adopted with the significant specification in its pre- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 19 

amble that one of its objects was "the encouragement 
and protection of manufacture," and on the 4th of July 
following received the signature of President Washington. 

The signing of this bill is frequently cited by the ad- 
vocates of the protective system in support of their asser- 
tions that Washington had repeatedly recommended the 
exercise of the "constitutional right" to lay taxes for 
purposes of protection. They fail to mention that he 
said, in reference to this subject in his first message to 
Congress, " the safety and interest of the people require 
that they should protect such manufactures as tend to 
render them independent of others for essential, particu- 
larly for military, supplies" Mark this language, used 
nearly a century ago. 

The main object of this first tariff bill was to fill an 
empty treasmy for the liquidation of public debts in- 
curred during the w^ar for independence. The principle 
which governed its final adjustment was to impose the 
highest per centum on articles of luxury, and to fix the 
lowest on goods and products of ordinary consumption 
among all classes of the people, which is just the reverse 
of the principle which governs the protectionists in their 
legislation of to-day. This spirit of fairness was well 
illustrated by the fact that the duty on Bohea tea was 
placed at six cents a pound, while for the finer Hyson tea 
a duty of twenty cents was laid. The then luxurious ar- 
ticle of loaf-sugar was taxed with three cents a pound, 
while the brown sugar, used by the poorer classes, paid 
but one cent. French and German wines were taxed 
eight cents a gallon, while the expensive Madeira paid a 
tax of eighteen cents ; and so on through the list. An 
average duty of fifteen per cent ad valorem — that is, upon 
the value of the article — was placed upon the different 



20 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

kinds of manufactures ; revenue was in those days the ob- 
ject, protection only the incident. 

The first authoritative imprint of national policy, how- 
ever, was sought to be given to the protective system by 
Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury under 
Washington and the recognized leader of the Federalist 
party. It has been questioned whether that astute states- 
man ever earnestly was in favor of a republican form of 
government for this country ; at all events, "he accepted 
it more from necessity than from choice." 

As a writer of note happily expresses it, "he repre- 
sented the force of national law, as Jefferson represented 
that of individual freedom. To Hamilton, Jefferson's 
idea of liberty was that of a bear broken loose from his 
chain ; and to Jefferson, Hamilton's idea of law was only 
that of British law, then administered by the few and for 
the few, with little regard for the happiness or rights of 
the many." In other words, Jefferson represented the 
popular and Hamilton the aristocratic idea of govern- 
ment. In characterizing Jefferson's idea of liberty, Mr. 
Hamilton exhibits his contempt for the great mass of 
common laboring people by comparing them to the bear, 
which it is unsafe to release from its chain. 

In perfect unison with these views, the situation of 
the two parties in this tariff controversy is described by 
Mr. Blaine on page 180, vol. I of his work : " The tariff 
question," he says, "has, in fact, been more frequently 
and elaborately debated than any other issue since the 
foundation of the government. The present generation 
is more familiar with the question relating to slavery, to 
war, to reconstruction ; but as these disappear by per- 
manent adjustment, the tariff question returns and is 
eagerly seized upon by both sides to the controversy. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 21 

More than any other issue, it represents the enduring and 
persistent line of division between the two parties which, 
in a general sense, have always existed in the United 
States ; the party of strict construction and the party of 
literal construction; the party of State rights and the party 
of national supremacy y the "party of stinted revenue and re- 
stricted expenditure and the party of generous income with 
its wise application of public improvement; the party, in 
short, of Jefferson against the party of Hamilton P 

The issue between the two great parties could not pos- 
sibly be stated more forcibly or more truthfully. In 
plain English, Mr. Blaine's classification would read thus: 
The party of strict adherence to the spirit and letter of 
the constitution as against the party of liberal go-as-you- 
please construction ; the party of local self-government 
as against the party of centralization and meddling papa- 
government; the party of low taxes and economy in 
public expenditures as against the party of high expendi- 
tures and subsidy to private concerns; the party, in short, 
of Jefferson, the representative of the people as against 
Hamilton, the representative of privileged classes. 

In defining Hamilton's position upon the question of 
protection, Mr. Blaine says : " Mr. Hamilton sustained 
the plan of encouraging home manufacture by protective 
duties, even to the point, in some instances, of making 
duties equivalent to prohibition." 

If these were Mr. Hamilton's sentiments, he did not 
dare to assert them in his public writings. Long before 
the adoption of the Federal constitution, Mr. Hamilton 
gave' utterance upon this subject, in one of his famous let- 
ters to the Federalist, which is in direct contradiction 
to the views Mr. Blaine says were held by him. 

" There are persons," Mr. Hamilton says, " who imagine 



22 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

that duties can never be carried to too great length, since 
the higher they are the more they will promote domestic 
manufacture. But all extremes are pernicious in various 
ways. Exorbitant duties tend to render other classes of 
the community tributary, in an improper degree, to man- 
ufacturing classes, to whom are given a premature mo- 
nopoly of the markets ; they sometimes force industry out 
of its more natural channel into others, into which it 
flows with less advantage, and, in the last place, they 
oppress the merchant. When they are paid by the mer- 
chant, they operate as an additional tax upon the import- 
ing State, whose citizens pay their proportion of them in 
the character of consumers. In this view they are product- 
ive of inequality among the States, which inequality 
would be increased with the increased extent of the 
duties." 

And six years later, when Secretary of the Treasury 
under "Washington, in his famous report upon manufact- 
ures, Mr. Hamilton said : " The restrictive regulations, 
which in foreign markets abridge the vent of the increas- 
ing surplus of our agricultural produce, serve to beget an 
earnest desire that a more extensive demand for the sur- 
plus may be created at home. If the system of perfect 
liberty to industry and commerce were the prevailing sys- 
tem of nations, the arguments to dissuade a country, in the 
predicament of the United States, from the zealous pur- 
suit of manufactures, would undoubtedly have great force" 

In other words, if it had not been for the English corn 
laws, which at that time were very nearly prohibitive, 
excluding all our agricultural products from the English 
market, the arguments of the opponents to the prohibitive 
system would la re ]x(d great force 

But England lias since seen the folly of the restrictive 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 23 

policy, and has opened her ports for almost all of our sur- 
plus products of agriculture and manufacture, and the 
conditions when, according to Mr. Hamilton, " free trade 
arguments would have great force," have long since been 
created. 

From this it would undoubtedly appear that Mr. Ham- 
ilton advocated protection more as a defensive measure 
against the restrictive policy of other nations than as a 
policy of bounty to the manufacturer. If at heart he was 
an aristocrat and perhaps a monarchist, he was conscien- 
tiously so, believing that the so-called " better classes" 
should rule ; but he was not sordid, and too honorable to 
deliberately formulate or sanction a system with the 
avowed object " of cutting straps out of the hides of the 
poor for the stirrups of the rich:" 

Has it ever occurred to Mr. Blaine that he is one of 
those persons who, according to Mr. Hamilton, "imagine 
that duties can never be carried to extremes," and that, 
consequently, he cannot and is not following the princi-* 
pies of the statesman whom he delights to quote " as the 
father of the protective system " ? 

After Hamilton the changes in the tariff were unim- 
portant until 1812 when, under the plea of war necessities, 
the tariff on iron and cotton jumped to twenty-five per cent 
ad valorem. These duties were maintained withslight vari- 
ation until 1824, when a further important step toward 
protection was made. It w T as during the debates upon 
this tariff that Daniel Webster said : " Look to the his- 
tory of our laws ! Look at the present state of our laws ! 
Consider that our whole revenue, with a trifling excep- 
tion, is collected at the custom house and always has 
been, and then say what propriety there is in calling on 
the government for protection, as if no protection had 



24 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

i 

heretofore been afforded. On the general question is the 
doctrine of prohibition, as a general doctrine, not prepos- 
terous? Suppose all nations to act upon it ; they would 
be prosperous then, according to this argument ; that is 
precisely in the proportion in which they abolish inter- 
course with one another. The best apology for laws of 
prohibition and laws of monopoly will be found in that 
state of society not only unenlightened but sluggish in 
which they are generally established. But our age is 
wholly of a different character, and its legislation takes 
another turn. Society is full of excitement; competition 
comes in place of monopoly, and intelligence and indus- 
try ask only for fair play and an open field." 

In referring to this very tariff controversy during 
the session of Congress from 1823 to 1824, Thomas Ben- 
ton, in his memorable work, "Thirty Years in the United 
States Senate," said: "The protection of domestic indus- 
m try not being among the granted powers was looked for 
in the incidental, and denied by the strict constructionists 
to be a substantial power to be exercised for the direct 
purpose of protection ; but admitted by all at that time 
and ever since the first tariff act of 1789 to be an inci- 
dent to the revenue-raising power. Revenue the object, 
protection the incident, had been the rule of earlier 
tariffs." 

In 1828 the duties were still further increased. " The 
tariff for 1828," says Benton, u is an era in our legislation, 
being the event from which the doctrine of ' nullification ' 
takes its origin, and from which a serious division dates 
between the North and South. It was the work of poli- 
ticians and manufactv/rers, and was commenced for the 
benefit of the woolen mterest; but like all other bills of 
tin's kind, it required help from other interests to get 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 25 

itself along, ana that help was only to be obtained by 
admitting x)ther interests into the benefit of the bill" — 
or, what since that time is known by the name of " pool- 
ing." 

During the debates upon this bill, Mr. Rowan, a rep- 
resentative from the State of Kentucky, said : " He was 
not opposed to the tariff as a system of revenue honestly 
devoted to the objects of revenue ; on the contrary, he 
was friendly to a tariff of that character ; but, when per- 
verted by the ambition of political aspirants and the 
secret influence of inordinate cupidity to purposes of sec- 
tional ascendency, he would not be seduced by the capti- 
vation of names or terms, however attractive, to lend it 
his undivided support. It is in vain to contend that it is 
called the American system — names do not alter things. 
There is but one American system, and that is delineated 
in the State and Federal constitutions. It is the system 
of equal rights and privileges, secured 'by the representa- 
tive principle — a system which, instead of subjugating 
the proceeds of the labor of some to taxation with the 
view to enrich others, secures to all the proceeds of their 
labor, and exempts all from taxation, except for the support 
of the protecting power of the government-. As a sup- 
port necessary to the maintenance of the government he 
would support it, call it what you please ; as a tax for any 
other purpose, and especially for the purposes to which 
he had alluded, it had his undivided reprobation, under 
whatever name it might assume." 

From the adoption of this tariff also dates the remark- 
able change of policy of the 'New England States — that 
is, from free trade to that of protection ; and from that 
epoch also dates Mr. Webster's singular conversion to the 
protective system. From a commercial community New 



26 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFI\ 

England had become one of manufacturing enterprises, 
and, consequently, selfishness dictated a change of policy. 

The debates upon this bill of 1828 were very bitter ; 
the representatives of the manufacturing States and of 
the agricultural States being arrayed against each other, 
the controversy partook much of a sectional character. 
Members of the Southern States were extremely dissatis- 
fied with the bill which was passed by the small majority of 
10T against 102 in the House, and with but twenty-three 
to twenty-two votes in the Senate. The new burden 
upon imports, they very properly maintained, fell upon 
the producer of the agricultural exports, and tended to 
enrich one section of the Union at the expense of the 
other — a proposition which has been realized to the letter, 
as will be shown further on by official statistics. It was 
during this memorable debate that Mr. Van Buren ad- 
dressed the sagacious remark to the manufacturers, "if 
they suffered their interests to become identified with 
a political party they would share the fate of that party." 

In 1832 South Carolina passed the famous Nullifica- 
tion Act, and it was not so much the threat of Gen. Jack- 
son that he would hang Calhoun higher than Haman as 
the Clay Compromise Act that subdued the rebellious 
spirit. This compromise tariff contained the stipulated 
surrender of the protective principle; the clause which 
provided that after the 30th of September, 1842, duties 
should only be laid for raising such revenue as might be 
necessary for an economical administration of the gov- 
ernment, left the question at rest for ten years. In 1837 
the financial panic, the result of wild speculation, raged 
all over the land. The Whig party successfully charged 
the tariff reduction with the prevailing distress, and thus 
elected Harrison and Tyler in 1840, and two j^ears after- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 27 

ward the Whig tariff bill, which substantially restored 
the high duties of 1824, was approved. 

In 1844 Polk was elected President, and his adminis- 
tration constitutes the most remarkable period of tariff 
reform in the history of this country. Mr. Polk's Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, Mr. Walker, was a man of extraor- 
dinary force and ability, and withal a sincere adherent of 
the Jeffersonian school of commercial freedom. 

In his whole intellectual make-up he was the exact 
antipode of Hamilton. He firmly believed not only in 
the right but in the capacity of the people to rule. He 
believed also that the interests of the few should always 
be subservient to the interests of the many. In his first an- 
nual report, Mr. Walker laid down the following princi- 
ples upon which his great economical act was to rest : 

" 1. That no more money should be collected than 
is necessary for the wants of the government honestly 
administered. 

" 2. That no duty be imposed on any article above the 
lowest rate which will yield the largest amount of revenue. 

" 3. That below such a rate discrimination be made 
descending in the scale of duties or, for imperative reasons, 
the articles may be placed on the free list. 

"4. That the maximum of revenue duties should be 
imposed on luxuries. 

" 5. That all minimum and all specific duties should be 
abolished and ad valorem, duties substituted in their place, 
care being taken against fraudulent invoices and under- 
valuation, and to assess the duty upon the actual market 
value. 

"6. That the duty should be so imposed as to operate 
as equally as possible throughout the Union, discriminat- 
ing neither for nor against any class or section." 



28 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

In his remarkable report, Mr. Walker said : " The 
constitutional power of Congress to collect taxes, duties, 
imposts and excises does not authorize the laying of pro- 
hibitory duty, or a duty in which revenue is sacrificed to 
the object of protecting the manufacture of the commodity 
taxed. Taxation, whether direct or indirect, should be 
as nearly as practicable in proportion to the property. 
If the whole revenue ivere raised by a tax upon property, 
the poor would pay a very small portion of such tax; where- 
as, hy the consumption of imports or of commodities en- 
hanced in price under the tariff, the poor are made to pay a 
much larger share than if they were collected hy an assess- 
ment in proportion to property. The duties upon luxuries 
should be fixed at the highest revenue standard. This 
would not be discriminating in favor of the poor but 
would mitigate that discrimination. A protective tariff is 
a question regarding the enhancement of the profits of 
capital, and not the augmentation of the wages of labor. 
It is a question of percentage and is to decide whether 
money invested in our manufactories shall, by special 
legislation, yield a profit of ten to twenty or thirty per cent, 
or whether it shall remain satisfied with a dividend equal to 
that accruing from the same capital invested in agricult- 
ure, commerce or navigation. It seems strange that 
while the profits of agriculture vary from one to eight 
per cent, that of manufacture is more than double. The 
reason is that, while high duties secure nearly a monopoly 
of the home market for the manufacturer, farmers are, to 
a great extent, forbidden to buy in foreign markets and 
confined to the home market with prices enhanced by the 
duties. The tariff is thus a double benefit to the manu- 
facturer and a double loss to the farmer. Industry will 
best thrive when let alone ; let all international exchanges 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 29 

of product move as freely in their orbits as the heavenly 
bodies, and their order and harmony will be as perfect 
and their results as beneficial as in every movement 
under the laws of nature, when undisturbed by the errors 
and influences of man." 

The Walker tariff was adopted by the House by a 
large majority but barely passed the Senate ; that body, 
in our political system, then, as to-day, being antagonistic 
to all popular measures, not the representatives of sov- 
ereign States but of privileged classes. 

The low-revenue tariff, contrary to all the prophecies 
of protectionists, had the effect of increasing the revenue 
to $46,000,000 annually, or $20,000,000 more than under 
the protective tariff of 1842, and sufficient to meet all the 
exigencies of the Mexican War. 

Here is what Prof. Summer, of Yale College, a recog- 
nized authority in matters of political economy, says, in 
reference to the effect of that tariff : 

" The period from 1846 to 1860 was our period of com- 
parative free trade. For an industrial history of the 
United States, no period presents a greater interest than 
this. It was a period of very great and very solid pros- 
perity. The tariff rates were low and their effect limited. 
It was called a revenue tariff with incidental protection. 
The manufacturers which, it had been said, would perish, 
did not perish and did not gain sudden and exorbitant 
profits. They made steady and genuine progress. The 
repeal of the English corn laws in 1846 opened a large 
market for American agricultural products. The effect 
on both countries was most happy. It seemed as if the 
old system had gone forever, and that these two # great 
nations, with free industry and free trade, were to pour 
increased wealth upon each other. The fierce dogmatism 



30 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

of protection and its deeply-rooted prejudices seemed to 
have received a fatal blow. Our shipping rapidly in- 
creased. Our cotton crops grew larger and larger. The 
States, indeed, repeated our old currency follies and the 
panic of 1857 resulted, but it was only a stumble in a 
career of headlong prosperity. We recovered from it in 
a twelvemonth. Incidentally, I will add also that, in the 
administration of the government, the period from the 
Mexican to the Civil War is our golden era, if we have 
any." 

In the following singularly corroborative language, in 
speaking of that period of simple revenue tariff, Mr. 
Blaine, in his " Twenty Years in Congress," says : " The 
tariff of 1846 was yielding abundant revenue, and the 
business of the country was in a flourishing condition. 
Money became very abundant after the year 1849 ; large 
enterprises were undertaken, speculation was prevalent, 
and for a considerable period the prosperity of the coun- 
try was general and apparently genuine. After 1852 the 
Democrats had almost undisputed control of the govern- 
ment, and had gradually become a free-trade party. The 
principles involved in the tariff of 1846 seemed for the 
time to be so entirely vindicated and approved that resist- 
ance to it ceased, not only among the people but among 
the protective economists and even among the manufact- 
urers to a large extent So general was this acquiescence 
that in 1856 a protective tariff was not suggested or even 
hinted at by any one of the three parties which presented 
presidential candidates. It was not surprising, there- 
fore, that in 1857 the duties were placed lower than they 
had been since 1812." Such eminent senators from New 
England as Sumner and Wilson from Massachusetts, Allen 
from Rhode Island, and Bell of New Hampshire, sup- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 31 

ported the measure "which was well received by the 
people." 

Here we have the testimony of the foremost repre- 
sentative of Mr. Hamilton's party of " generous income 
and of liberal expenditures," describing in glowing terms 
the general condition of the country under the simple 
revenue tariff, from 1846 to 1861. Mr. Blaine admits that 
during that period u the prosperity of the country was 
general and genuine." That is to say, that there was re- 
munerative work for all who wanted work ; that there 
was no destitution, no misery, and that at that time the 
term starvation or starvation wages was not known ; that 
the laborers of the country were prosperous and satisfied, 
and had not to resort to secret organizations and to the 
coercive measures of strikes to secure the just reward for 
their toil, and that such social abnormities as the pilgrim- 
age of hundreds of thousands of laborers and mechanics in 
search of work, for whom the term " tramp " has since 
been invented, were not then even conceived. Mr. Blaine 
does not say, but his acknowledgment implies, that the 
manufacturers did not make sudden and inordinate fort- 
unes, but their progress was steady and genuine ; that 
the large expenditures of money by tariff lobbyists in 
Washington were then not known; that United States 
senators and representatives did not then grow sud- 
denly rich as now. 

But Mr. Blaine's admissions are simply recorded here 
as corroborative evidence for such as ignorantly, or in a 
spirit of partisan fanaticism, are prone to deny or refuse 
to acknowledge the truth of historical facts, simply be- 
cause they wish the opposite true. 

After the capitulation of Milan, the Austrian general 
said to General Bonaparte that his government would 



32 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

readily acknowledge the French republic ; to which 
Bonaparte replied : " The republic needs no acknowledg- 
ment ; it is as the sun ; blind are those who do not see it." 
Blind are those, indeed, who, in reading the history of 
this country from 1846 to 1861, do not see that it was the 
most glorious, happy, or, as Prof. Sumner better expresses 
it, " the golden era " of our history. 

But what was this state of universal contentment to 
the ambitious politicians, who, thirsting for power, were 
striving for supremacy in the Federal administration ! 

The presidential election of 1860 was pending, and the 
opportunities offered by the excited state of public opin- 
ion on the slavery question must be improved ; the elec- 
tion of their presidential candidate must be made certain, 
even at the dishonorable expedient of bribing a whole 
State that had heretofore been steadily opposed to the 
Hamilton ian party. 

" The question of the tariff," says Mr. Blaine, on page 
204, vol. I of his work, " was of special significance 
and influence in Pennsylvania. Important in that State, 
it had become important everywhere. Pennsylvania had 
been continually and tenaciously held by the Democratic 
party. In the old political divisions, she had followed 
Jefferson and opposed Adams. In the new division she 
had followed Jackson and opposed Clay. She was Dem- 
ocratic as against Federalists, she was Democratic as 
against Whigs. From the election of Jackson in 1828 to 
the y ear 1860, a period that measured the lifetime of a 
generation, she had, with very few exceptions, sustained 
the Democratic party. . . . Disassociated from the ques- 
tion of protection, opposition to the extension of slavery 
was a weak issue in Pennsylvania. ... It was this con- 
dition of public opinion in Pennsylvania which made the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 33 

recognition of the protective system so essential in the 
Chicago platform of 1860. It was to that recognition that 
Mr. Lincoln, in the end, owed his election. . . . Had the 
Republicans failed to carry the State election, there can 
be no doubt that Mr. Lincoln would have been defeated. 
An adverse result in Pennsylvania in October would cer- 
tainly have involved the loss of Indiana in November, 
beside California and Oregon and the four votes in New 
Jersey. ... In reviewing the agencies, therefore, which 
precipitated the political revolution of 1860, large con- 
sideration must be given to the influence of the movement 
for protection" 

An honest confession is balm to the soul. The con- 
spiracy of the friends of his party to undermine and 
break up a fiscal system which, for the previous fifteen 
years, had given " general and genuine prosperity to the 
country," could not possibly be exposed more forcibly or 
more frankly. Let us play Joshua, they said; let us 
stop the sun, who, heretofore, threw his warming rays 
equally over all, whose light diffused contentment and 
happiness among the rich and the poor alike ; let these 
blessings be hereafter monopolized by a few of us, and 
let us make hay as long as we can keep this sun standing 
still. 

How well this conspiracy succeeded is matter of 
recent history. The war with all its untold horrors 
for the people and its splendid opportunities for the 
heartless jobber and political adventurer was the imme- 
diate consequence ; it cut the golden thread which was 
guiding the American people into even and lasting pros- 
perity. 

At the first sign of the coming trouble, when the eyes 
of the people were turned in another direction and steadily 



54 THE PROTECTIVE TARli^'. 

fixed upon the endangered flag of the country, the 
agents of special interests filled the congressional lobbies, 
urging, cajoling and threatening the representatives into 
passing bills to protect this, that and the other manufact- 
ured commodities, of course, all under the patriotic pre- 
tense of providing the government with ample revenue 
for impending emergencies. Patriotism ran exceedingly 
high in those days, and the most enthusiastic brawlers for 
an "immediate advance upon Richmond," were ready 
and more than willing " that all their relatives should be 
sacrificed upon the altar of liberty." But, of course, some 
one had to stay behind to see that the boys in blue at 
the front be well supplied with clothing and provisions ; 
especially clothing, because it is well known that the 
cold, raw climate of the South required a great deal of 
that. And, as the Frenchman says, " eating brings appe- 
tite," so the manufacturers' appetite increased as the prof- 
itable effect of protection was enjoyed ; upon their 
demand, accordingly, one act after another was passed, 
enhancing the duties upon imports until all foreign com- 
petition was barred out, and they could, with perfect 
impunity, unload their shoddy wares, at high prices, upon 
the government. 

It was then that the flag and an appropriation states- 
man appeared upon the political stage, and low cunning 
took the place of statesmanship. 

The country was in danger, and the patriotic people 
of the North were ready for any sacrifice ; but, while the 
generous youth of the nation responded with alacrity to 
the President's call "for three hundred thousand more," 
the representatives of special interests from Pennsyl- 
vania and the New England States rushed from their 
seats in Congress, with the American flag in one hand 



HISTOIilCAL SKETCH. 35 

and with a tariff bill in the other, crying : " Give ! Give ! 
Save the Union ! Save the Union ! But give." And they 
did give. 

The protectionists had taken time by the forelock, 
and, while the tariff, known as the Morrill Act, was 
not, as is generally supposed, a war measure, it was sug- 
gested by political exigencies. It was adopted in the 
House during the session from 1859 to 1860, just previous 
to the election of Mr. Lincoln, but did not pass the Senate 
until the next session. It was intended, as claimed by 
Mr. Morrill, to restore the rates of 1846 which, by the 
act of 1857, had been greatly reduced. The real motive, 
however, which actuated the great statesmen from the 
New England States and their political cooperators from 
Pennsylvania, as confessedly admitted by Mr. Blaine, 
was to create Republican sentiment in Pennsylvania. 
With the exception of the rates on iron and wool, which 
were raised considerably, and numerous changes from 
value rates to specific duties, by which the rates were 
surreptitiously increased, the Morrill tariff did not mate- 
rially differ from the Walker tariff of 1846. 

In July, 1862, two consecutive acts were passed rais- 
ing the duties to thirty-two per cent in the average, and 
in June and August, 1864, these were increased to forty- 
seven per cent, and these are, with but slight modifica- 
tion, the tariff rates of to-day. 

" The result of this legislation," said Tax Commissioner 
Wells, " is a tariff which is unjust and unequal ; which 
needlessly enhances prices ; which takes far more indi- 
rectly from the people than is received into the treasury ; 
which renders an exchange of domestic commodities for 
foreign commodities nearly impossible ; which necessitates 
the continual exportation of obligations of national in- 



36 THE PROTECTIVE TABIFF. 

debtedness and of the precious metals, and which, while 
professing to protect American industries, discriminates 
against them." 

At the close of the war the internal revenue taxes were 
to a great extent swept away, but any reduction of the 
taxes on imports was steadily resisted by the members of 
Congress representing special interests, and, as monopolies 
always secure the best intellects available, superior brains 
and personal influence were on their side. However, the 
demand for a reduction of the war taxes had grown so 
strong in the Western States that the representatives 
from that section of the country, irrespective of party, 
insisted upon some legislation. 

In 1867 an effort at reduction of tariff rates came 
very near being successful. Mr. David A. Wells, then 
special commissioner of revenue, with the sanction of 
the secretary of the treasury, Mr. McCulloch, had a bill 
prepared reducing the duties on raw material, etc., which 
passed the Senate with the handsome majority of tw r enty- 
seven to ten, and the House with a not less significant 
majority of 106 to 64, or, but a few votes less than the 
two-thirds necessary to a suspension of the rules. This 
unfortunate event defeated the bill, and for three years 
ended all attempts at tariff reform. 

As the money continued to accumulate in the treas- 
ury, the people's demand for lessening their burdens 
could no longer be resisted. In 1870 the duty on simple 
revenue articles, such as tea, coffee, sugar, molasses and 
spices, was lowered, and in 1872 coffee and tea were put 
upon the free list. It must not be supposed, however, 
that this was acceded to as a concession; it was but a 
strategic movement on the part of the protectionists, sim- 
ilar to the one now being proposed by Mr. Randall for a 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 37 

repeal of the taxes on whisky and tobacco, and with a 
similar design. By cutting off all revenue from internal 
taxation, they shrewdly calculated any reduction of tariff 
taxes would become impossible. The lack of public spirit 
and patriotism among the advocates of protection was as 
apparent then as now, when the fact is considered that all 
the taxes collected upon whisky and tobacco and upon 
such articles of general consumption as are not produced 
in the United States go into the treasury, while the 
taxes upon foreign manufactures, which restrict the 
importation of foreign articles, and, consequently, increase 
the price of the home product, eventually flow into the 
pockets of private individuals, or, as we shall hereafter 
have occasion to show, are wasted and lost in the shuffle. 
By this act of 1872 the duty on salt, which had en- 
riched the salt operators in Syracuse and Saginaw, was 
reduced one-half, and the duty on coal, which had been 
$1.25 a ton, was reduced to seventy-five cents. It also 
made a horizontal reduction of ten per cent upon manu- 
factures of cotton, wool, iron, paper, glass and leather ; 
but three years later, in 1875, this act was repealed as 
far as import taxes were concerned. In this connec- 
tion it will be remembered that Mr. Morrison, of Illinois, 
in 1880 proposed an exactly similar reduction. But what 
had been commented on by the public press as wise and 
patriotic, when introduced and recommended by Messrs. 
Dawes and Blaine, was denounced as erratic, unbusiness- 
like and impractical when proposed by Mr. Morrison. It 
makes all the difference in the world to the partisan what 
party label a reformer is wearing. 

After 1875 repeated but ineffectual attempts were 
made by Mr. Morrison to have the tariff reduced, but by 
shrewd and unscrupulous management the party of Jef- 



38 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

ferson became divided on the tariff issue, and Mr. Randall, 
a Pennsylvania protectionist, having been elected Speaker 
of the House, organized the committee against Mr. Morri- 
son and his friends, and in the interest of protectionism. 

However, Banquo's ghost would not down. But mem- 
bers of Congress, representing special interests or lacking 
the courage of honest convictions or too ignorant to master 
the subject, did for a time succeed in preventing the con- 
sideration and discussion of this question. Newspapers 
were, subsidized by monopolies ow 7 ing their wealth to this 
system, but the independent and consequently most 
influential portion of the public press was determined 
that public sentiment regarding the tariff should not be 
permitted to die out, and continued unceasingly to "agi- 
tate." In 1882 this sentiment had taken definite shape and 
the cry of alarm was already heard all along the line of 
the "disturbed industries." 

When it became apparent to the representatives of the 
protected industries that the popular demand for a reduc- 
tion of taxes could no longer be disregarded, or its consid- 
eration postponed, Mr. Sherman, the principal representa- 
tive of the woolen interest, and his assistants of the pro- 
tective school, resolved to take matters by the forelock 
and master the situation. If we must have changes and 
modifications, they said, let us do the changing and modi- 
fying ourselves. The representatives of the people, it was 
thought, might be competent to increase the rates on im- 
ports but could not be trusted with the important and 
difficult task of revising and simplifying the tariff with 
the view to reduction. Such momentous labors could 
only properly be performed by men of experience and 
experts in the various industrial branches! 

It was, therefore, thought judicious to remove the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 39 

question from the halls of Congress, to prevent the matter 
from being openly discussed, and the iniquities of the pre- 
vailing tariff laid bare to the eyes of the whole country. 
Consequently, a commission composed of " practical men " 
was resolved upon, which would investigate the whole 
matter and formulate a tariff. Mr. Sherman has great 
faith in the efficacy of commissions! "Was it not a com- 
mission which, in 1876, saved the United States govern- 
ment from falling into the hands of the party of " stinted 
revenue and restricted expenditure " ? 

The appointment of that commission was opposed up- 
on the floor of Congress by every friend of popular gov- 
ernment, and by every honest advocate of tariff reform. 

The Hon. Poindexter Dunn, a representative from 
Arkansas, upon this occasion thus tersely and truthfully 
characterized the movement: " I am opposed to this bill 
because I believe it to be unconstitutional in its spirit and 
purpose, unnecessary, in fact, and strategic, cunning and 
evasive in its motives. I believe it is full of mystery and 
jugglery, unseen results and delusions. The advocates of 
the bill proceed entirely upon the theory that we now 
have a tariff system so complex, so mysterious and so 
' wonderfully and fearfully made ' that the ordinary legis- 
lative mind can no longer be trusted to deal or tamper 
with it. It is, therefore, proposed to create this commission 
of * wise men from the East,' to whom we are to delegate, 
not, indeed, the absolute power to enact a law but, cer- 
tainly, the power to substantially formulate legislation. 
We are told now that we do not know enough to formu- 
late the needed tariff legislation, and, 'by the same token,' 
as soon as tnis commission shall have reported, we shall 
be told that we are not capable of reviewing, revising or 
in any wise changing, altering or amending such bill as 



40 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

they may see proper to recommend to us. Therefore, it 
amounts substantially to a delegation of the power ' to lay 
and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises'; and this 
power is given by the Constitution to Congress and can- 
not be delegated by Congress, directly or indirectly, to 
any other tribunal, commission or other body. The Con- 
stitution further most explicitly requires that ' all bills for 
raising revenue shall originate in the House of Kepresent- 
atives.' By the terms of this bill, 4 a bill to raise revenue ' 
will originate in this ' tariff commission,' and be passed 
through the House as a matter of .form. So jealous were 
the people of this power of taxation in the early days that 
they would not even allow the Senate to originate a rev- 
enue bill, but limited that power to the House composed 
of the immediate representatives of the people. It is this 
very power to ' originate bills raising revenue ' that is pro- 
posed to be delegated to this commission. How can rep- 
resentatives, who are-aisually jealous of the powers and 
privileges of this House, reconcile their consciences to vote 
for this measure % " 

But Mr. Dunn's was a voice lost in the wilderness. 
The bill passed and the commission was appointed by the 
President. That commission was " to take into considera- 
tion and thoroughly investigate all the various questions 
relating to the agricultural, commercial, mercantile, manu- 
facturing, mining and industrial interests of the United 
States, so far as the same may be necessary to the estab- 
lishment of a judicious tariff, etc., etc., upon a scale of 
justice to all industries," etc., etc. After eight months' 
thorough examination, the commission submitted their 
report to Congress. 

It will be seen, of the various interests the commis- 
sion was to take into consideration " for the establishment 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 41 

of a tariff upon a scale of justice to all interests," that of 
agriculture was mentioned first. But after a careful 
perusal of the voluminous report, it is found this inter- 
est, more important than all the other interests combined, 
was neither thoroughly nor even superficially considered ; 
unless the farcical recommendation amounts to such con- 
sideration, " that a duty of one cent a pound be placed 
on beef and pork, two cents on hams and bacon, four 
cents on butter and butterine, two cents on lard, twenty 
cents on a bushel of wheat, fifteen cents on rye and barley, 
ten cents on corn, ten cents on oats," etc., which products 
we do not import but export in large quantities ; or the 
increasing of the tax on raw wool, rice, sugar and 
tobacco, which may affect the interests of a few farmers 
in Ohio and Pennsylvania and a handful of planters in 
the South. 

We have also searched in vain through the pages of 
this report for a "thorough consideration" of the interests 
of more than six million persons who, in 1880, were em- 
ployed in rendering professional and personal service and 
in trade and transportation. The report conclusively 
shows, that the interests the tariff commission felt itself 
called upon to exclusively consider, were the interests of 
the comparatively small number of individuals and cor- 
porations engaged in manufacture and mining, and that 
the act creating the commission misstated the real object. 
It ought to have read : "An act for the purpose of taking 
into consideration the manufacturing, mining, wool, sugar 
and rice interests, with a view to establishing a tariff 
for the fair distribution among these interests, of the 
whole plunder realized through this system." 

In its report, the commission substantially admits this 
construction. "Early in its deliberations," they say, "the 



4:2 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

commission became convinced that a substantial reduction 
of tariff duties was demanded. Such a reduction of the 
existing tariff the commission regarded as a measure of 
justice to consumers. Excessive duties, or those above 
such standard of equalization, are positively injurious to 
the interest which they are supposed to benefit. They en- 
courage the investment of capital in manufacturing enter- 
prises by rash and unskilled speculators, to be followed 
by disaster to the adventurers and their employes, and a 
plethora of commodities which derange the operations 
of skilled and prudent enterprise. Numerous examples 
of such disasters and derangements occurred during and 
after the excessively protective period of the late war. Ex- 
cessive duties, generally, or exceptionally high duties, in 
particular cases, discredit our whole national economic sys- 
tem, and furnish plausible argument for its complete sub- 
version." 

"Who are the consumers, who as the commission im- 
plies, have suffered from the injustice of excessively pro- 
tective duties ? Is it not the farmer and the numerous 
classes of our population whose interests were overlooked 
by that commission ? In a very few and plain words the 
commission admits the whole case of the tariff reformers. 
They fully agree with the commission, that the excessive 
duties prevailing for the last twenty-three years have 
been " positively injurious to the interests they are sup- 
posed to benefit " ; " that they have been the cause of dis- 
asters and derangements " through which the country has 
suffered untold miseries, and that, as a measure of justice 
to the consumers, " a substantial reduction of the tariff 
rates is demanded." But while these views were the 
u early convictions" of the commissioners, and while they 
had claimed that the result of their labors would be a re- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 43 

duction of from twenty to twenty-five per cent in the 
average, the actual decrease was a little over four per 
cent, and in many instances the rates were increased. 

Their schemes to gain time to bridge over the present 
difficulty and to appease the popular clamor succeeded 
admirably. The people became tired. They had been 
betrayed in the houses of their friends. The commission, 
composed of interested parties, merely completed the 
work mapped out for them, viz. : to defeat every attempt 
to enact a "measure of justice to the consumers." 

The Chicago Tribune, in commenting upon the 
lamentable outcome of their labor, said : " The tariff com- 
mission was not organized for any equitable or just pur- 
pose. It was organized to promote certain specific inter- 
ests. The few members who took part in it with a view 
to equalize the tariff were a minority. The woolen man- 
ufacturers had a specific object which, to them, over- 
shadows all other considerations, and they were allowed 
to have their own way. In return the iron ore and steel 
interest was allowed to frame a tariff to suit itself. So 
with the sugar planter, the cotton manufacturers, the 
glass and pottery interests. The result was a bill in 
which the idea of a general revision of the tariff was 
ignored. In the Senate, under the lead of Sherman, it 
was able, by log-rolling with the lumber men and others, 
seriously to increase the iron and steel tariff, to the dis- 
gust of all conservative members. 

A tariff commission composed of extreme partisans, 
each looking mainly to the advancement of some special 
interest, could hardly be expected to frame a just or wise 
bill, and the abortion produced by the commission failed, 
as a matter of course, to meet the expectations of the 
country," 



44: THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

The fact is, the commission had but one idea, and 
that was to make " protection" the object of the govern- 
ment, and revenue subordinate to " protection." "The 
inside history of the tariff commission," pertinently 
continues the Tribune, "is coming out from day to 
day. It was believed from the first that the commis- 
sion was packed in the interest of monopoly. It was 
known that two of the commissioners represented the 
woolen interests ; one, the iron and steel interests ; one, 
the sugar interests ; one, Mr. Kenner, ultra-protection and a 
high-tariff man generally. "When a letter was published 
some months ago from Mr. Robert P. Porter, it was sus- 
pected that the commission, instead of gathering infor- 
mation impartially as it traveled through the country, 
was really engaged in drumming up one-sided testimony 
to ' boom ' in favor of high tariff. This theory has been 
confirmed bv additional letters which were written dur- 
ins; the existence of the commission bv both Porter and 
Kenner. Mr. Porter was proxy for Pig-iron Kelly on the 
commission. His letters to Kelly attest that he was 
working to secure harmony among the commissioners in 
favor of maintaining ultra and excessive duties, and he was 
able to report to his principal at last, that ' There was an 
evident desire on the part of the commissioners to take 
matters into their own hands and push them through.' 
His letter shows that he was encouraging the manufact- 
urers and their representatives everywhere to come for- 
ward and either crowd out or overwhelm any person who 
might volunteer to speak in behalf of the people. He 
was doing the work for which he received his appoint- 
ment, and reported, from time to time, to Pig-iron Kelly, 
just as if the latter had made up the commission, and 
without taking any notice of the government which 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 45 

appointed it or the people in whose interest it was osten- 
>,.biy created." 

The case is much better stated by the Tribune than I 
could state it. The excessive and exceptionally high duties 
remain substantially in the condition which called forth 
the remarkable declaration of the tariff commission that 
these, to-wit, high duties " discredit our whole national 
economic system and furnish plausible argument for its 
complete subversion." 

The recent unsuccessful attempt of Congressman Mor- 
rison to do what the commission conscientiously believed 
was a " measure of justice to consumers," is too fresh in 
the memory of all to require repetition. In fact, the less 
said about that disgraceful episode, the better for the 
good name of our representative government. The 
eastern magnates, conscious of the efficacy of immense 
wealth, accumulated under this system of governmental 
subsidies, having grown impudent and aggressive, were 
fully determined to check in its incipiency every effort to 
reduce the exorbitant tariff taxes. Their representatives 
in Congress, having received instructions to stifle any 
movement which would lead to a discussion of this ques- 
tion, and the cooperation of some thirty members from 
the ranks of the people's representatives, too stupid or 
too ignorant to comprehend the situation, having been 
secured, they sneeringly defied this honest advocate of 
the people's interests from Illinois to bring forth his 
measure of justice to the consumers. 

Their programme was carried out to the letter, and for 
the first time in the history of the republic, the disgrace- 
ful spectacle of a parliamentary muzzle placed upon the 
mouth of the Chairman of the Ways and Means Commit- 
tee was witnessed. 



46 TltE PROMOTIVE TARIFF. 

This brief historical' sketch cannot be more fittingly 
closed than by the following lucid and candid statement 
of Secretary Manning in his treasury report of 1885. 

"Beside the reforms which are desirable for the 
effective administration of any system of taxation levied 
through imported merchandise and are indispensable for 
the administration of custom laws which, like our own, 
are a chaos rather than a system, I venture to hope that 
in due season it will be the pleasure of Congress to con- 
sider some other reforms, upon which, as is requisite, all 
parties may agree, and that are of a different scope. Like 
our currency laivs, otcr tariff laws are a legacy ofvjar. If 
exigencies excuse their origin, their defects are unneces- 
sary after twenty years of peace. They have been re- 
tained without sifting and discrimination, although en- 
acted without legislative debate, criticism or explana- 
tion. A horizontal reduction of ten per cent was made 
in 1872, but was repealed in 1875, and rejected in 1884. 
They require at our custom house the employment of a 
force sufficient to examine, appraise and levy duties upon 
more than 4,182 different articles. Many rates of duty 
begun in war have been increased since, although the late 
tariff commission declared them ' injurious to the inter- 
ests supposed to be benefited,' and said that a ' reduction 
would be conducive to the general prosperity.' They 
have been retained, although the long era of falling 
prices, in the case of specific duties, has operated a 
large increase of rates. They have been retained at 
an average ad valorem rate for the last year of 
over forty-six per cent, which is but two and a half 
per cent less than tlis highest rate of the war period, 
and is nearly four per cent more than the rate before 
the late revision. The highest endurable rates of duty 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 47 

which were adopted in 1862-4 to offset internal taxes 
upon almost every taxable article, have in most cases 
been retained now from fourteen to twenty years after 
every such internal tax has been removed. They have 
been retained while purely revenue duties upon articles 
not competing with anything produced in the thirty-eight 
States have been discarded. They have been retained upon 
articles used as materials for our own manufactures (in 
1884 adding $30,000,000 to their cost) which, if exported, 
compete in other countries against similar manufacturers 
from untaxed materials. Some rates have been retained 
after ruining the industries they were meant to advantage. 
Other rates have been retained after effecting a higher 
price for a domestic product at home than it was sold 
abroad for. The general high level o^ rates has been re- 
tained on the theory of countervailing lower wages abroad, 
when, in fact, the higher wages of American labor is at 
once the secret and the security of our capacity to distance 
all competition from ' pauper labor J in any market. All 
changes have left unchanged or changed for the worse, 
by new schemes of classification and otherwise, a 
complicated, cumbrous, intricate group of law^s which 
are not capable of being administered with impar- 
tiality to all our merchants. As nothing in the ordi- 
nary course of business is imported unless the price here 
of the domestic as well as the imported article is 
higher by the amount of the duty and the cost of sea- 
transit than the price abroad, the preference of the 
taxpayer for duties upon articles not produced in the 
United States is justified by the fact that such duties 
cost him no more than the treasury of his country gets. 
As for duties affecting articles that are also produced 
in the United States, the first to be safely discarded are 



48 THE PROTECTIVE TVEIFF. 

those upon materials used by our own manufacturers, 
which now subject them to a hopeless competition, at 
home and abroad, with the manufacturing nations, none 
of which taxes raw materials. It is not to be doubted 
that in any reform which shall finally receive the 
approval of the two Houses of Congress, they will 
maturely consider and favorably regard the interests 
which can only gradually and carefully be adjusted, 
without loss, to changes in the legislative conditions 
for their advancing prosperity." 

Secretary Manning has placed this whole protective 
theory in a nutshell, and unless its advocates can success- 
fully refute his deductions, "that high-priced labor can 
distance c pauper labor' m any market," that theory 
is reduced to a demand for an increase of the profits of 
capital, a proposition without the shadow of justification, 
either in law or in equity. 



THE GENERAL EFFECT OF THE PROTECTIVE 

SYSTEM. 



MR. BLAINE, in the first volume of his " Twenty 
Years in Congress," says : " The people of this 
country, under the protective system, are in a more pros- 
perous condition than that of any other country." 

And again : 

On page 211, vol. I, of his work, he makes the 
other singular statement that " It is the enjoyment 
of free trade and protection at the same time which has 
contributed to the unexampled development and marvel- 
ous prosperity of the United States." 

Mr. Blaine's first proposition that the American people 
are more prosperous than the people of any other coun- 
try is not to be questioned, and seems w r holly gratuitous 
when the facts are considered that the American people 
have been favored by greater natural advantages than 
the people of any other country ; that they were given 
an entire new continent, in extent as large as the whole 
of Europe, with endless and inexhaustible natural wealth 
and resources, and, above all, that they were blessed 
with institutions which offered opportunities for free 
individual and aggregate development never before 
offered to mankind. But when, in the face of his former 
admission of the grand results attained under the low 
tariff system, he presumes to convey the impression 
among his countrymen that the results of these divine 
blessings are due to the protective system, the soundness 
of his arguments may freely be questioned. 



50 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF 

As to his second statement, it is well known that 
the free trade system has prevailed between the 
States of the American Union ever since the formation 
of the government, and its wonderful results stand out in 
bold relief as the most powerful argument against the 
restrictive system advocated by Mr. Blaine, and we have 
the gentleman's own statement in evidence that even the 
partial application of that system upon foreign commerce 
had contributed to the general prosperity of the country. 
How does Mr. Blaine reconcile that proposition with 
the other, viz.: that the diametrically opposite system, 
that of protection or restriction, has also had the effect 
of contributing to the general prosperity of the country ? 

In support of his claims Mr. Blaine produces figures 
frcm the last United States census report and other 
official statistics. His principal boast is that under the 
system of protection the aggregate wealth of the United 
States had reached in 1880 the enormous figure of $43,- 
600,000,000. 

In parading this array of figures he seems to place 
more confidence than we do in their reliability. But since 
he produces them in support of his claims, it is but just and 
proper in scrutinizing his statement that we use the same 
official authority. 

From the figures of the same report it appears that in 
1850 the total estimated wealth of the country aggre- 
gated $7,000,000,000 in round numbers. During the 
following low tariff decade from 1850 to 1860 our 
wealth increased to $16,000,000,000 or 126 per cent ; 
from 1860 to 1870, under the high protective tariff sys- 
tem, this aggregate wealth increased to $30,000,000,000 or 
eighty-seven per cent, and during the next high protective 
decade to $43,600,000,000 or forty-six per cent. 



GENERAL EFFECT OF PROTECTIVE SYSTEM. 51 

The census also shows, that the capital invested in 
manufactories increased during the low tariff decade ninety 
per cent, and only thirty-two per cent during the high pro- 
tective system, from 1870 to 1880. 

Wages, upon which so much stress is laid by protec- 
tionists, increased sixty per cent during the low tariff de- 
cade and only thirty-two per cent under the high tariff de- 
cade. 

The raw material used in manufactories from 1850 to 
1860 increased eighty-six per cent, and only thirty-six per 
cent from 1870 to 1880. 

The value of manufactured products increased under the 
low tariff decade to eighty-five per cent, and only twenty- 
seven per cent under the high tariff system. 

During the years of the low Walker tariff, from 1850 
to 1860, the exports of manufactured articles increased in 
the ratio of 171 per cent, but during the next twenty 
years of high protective tariff the corresponding increase 
of manufactured exports was only eighty per cent. 

Our cod fisheries had steadily increased under the low 
Walker tariff until they had reached 93,000 tons in 1850, 
and in 1860 had increased to 137,000 tons, when, under the 
protective system, the fisheries steadily decreased until 
both cod and mackeral fishing, which heretofore had not 
been figured together, had dwindled to 77,000 tons in 
1882. 

According to Mr. Blaine's statistics, the capacity of 
the American ships engaged in the ocean trade in 1850 
was 1,440,000 tons in round numbers. This capacity 
increased during the low tariff decade to 2,380,000 tons, 
but just as soon as the effect of the exorbitant tariff of 
1862-3 was felt, that tonnage decreased until it fell to 
1,200,000 tons. 



52 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

Prof. Perry, in his " Political Economy," amplifies Mr. 
Blaine's statistics as follows: "The number of vessels 
plying between the United States and Europe in 1881 was 
5,210, of which 555 were steamships. Of the sailing-vse- 
sels, the United States had nineteen per cent of the ton- 
nage. Of the steamships, eighty per cent were British, and 
the United States had four and no more. Four steamships 
out of 555, where we once had three-fourths of the busi- 
ness." 

From the official reports on " Commerce and Naviga- 
tion of the United States," it appears that in 1821, of 
the $128,000,000 worth of exports and imports, over 
$113,000,000 was carried in United States vessels. This 
proportion was kept up until 1860, when of $760,000,000 
worth of imports and exports, $507,000,000 was carried 
in American vessels, or nearly seventy per cent of the 
whole. With the adoption of the high protective system, 
our carrying trade steadily decreased, until in 1883, when 
after twenty-three years of high protection, of the $1,300,- 
000,000 worth of imports and exports, only $263,000,000, 
or sixteen per cent, was carried in American vessels. 

Navigation is the connecting link of international 
intercourse, and the interests of our merchant marine 
should have been watched by our law-makers with the 
most intense solicitude. But instead, this great interest 
of the country, the same as that of the farmers, has been 
sacrificed to the protection molochs of Pennsylvania and 
the New England States. 

It is true there were other causes beside the tariff 
which contributed to the decline of our ocean marine, the 
principal one being, the change of wooden to iron ships 
and the displacement of sailing vessels by steamships. In 
both of these items England had distanced the United 



GENERAL EFFECT OF PROTECTIVE SYSTEM. 53 

States five years before the war. But there is not the 
least doubt that if the government had kept its hand off 
private concerns, the well-known American enterprise and 
push would, in a comparatively short time, have regained 
the lost ground. As it is, the tonnage of free trade Eng- 
land's merchant marine, which was but 935,000 tons in 
185G, or considerably less than ours, has to-day nearly 
reached 8,000,000 tons, or more than four times as much 
as ours. 

Again, we are told by Mr. Blaine that England " has 
stimulated the growth of her ocean marine by the most 
enormous bounties ever paid by any nation to any enter- 
prise." 

Admitting that a few of the most important steam- 
ship lines were subsidized by the English government, 
that fact cuts only a small figure in the marvelous rapid- 
ity with which Great Britain has monopolized the ocean- 
carrying trade of the world. Ocean shipping follows 
trade with as much mathematical certainty as the estab- 
lishment of postal routes or of express lines follow the 
development of a country. It is to the enormous growth 
of her miscellaneous trade, established in all parts of the 
world under the beneficial influence of her free fiscal 
system, that the unparalleled development of her shipping 
interest is due. 

To England every market of the world is open to 
receive every conceivable article of manufactured product 
because she is the cheapest and most unhampered producer 
in the world. 

The vessel sailing from London to the Sandwich 
Islands with a miscellaneous cargo may not find a cargo 
to return with, but may find one for Sidney, Australia ; 
there it may obtain a cargo to Singapore, where, again, it 



54 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

may reload for New York, when, at last, it can be loaded 
with American produce for the home port. 

This is what freedom of commerce is doing for the 
British merchant marine but which our protective sys- 
tem has entirely prevented the merchant marine of the 
United States from doing. 

Again : " The extension of postal facilities," says Mr. 
Blaine, on page 673, vol. II, of his work, " is perhaps the 
most significant measure of the intellectual activity of a 
people." 

In appendix I, vol. I, of the same work, we find that 
in 1845, the year previous to the enactment of Mr. 
Walker's tariff for revenue, the postal facilities of the 
United States and Territories consisted of 143,940 miles 
of postal routes. 

During the low tariff period the extent of the post- 
routes had increased to 260,052 miles in 1859, or a clear 
increase in. fourteen years of 116,112 miles. 

In 1879, after almost twenty years of high protection, 
and with nearly twice the population, these postal facili- 
ties, which Mr. Blaine contends, "are the most significant 
measure of the intellectual activity of a people," had 
increased to but 316,711, or a net increase of only. 56,098 
miles; about half as many during twenty years under' 
protection as during the fourteen years under a tariff for 
revenue. From this it would appear that the intellectual 
activity of the American people, as measured by Mr. 
Blaine's own standard, has experienced a remarkable de- 
cline under the influence of the protective system. 

Again, on page 674, vol. II, he says : " The increase 
ratio in the construction of railroads gives some concep- 
tion of the progress of wealth." 

The following figures are those of appendix 1, vol. II 



GENERAL EFFECT OF PROTECTIVE SYSTEM. 55 

of his work. It appears therefrom that at the close of 
1849, when Mr. Walkers revenue tariff began to fairly 
show its effect upon the prosperity of the country, there 
were 7,365 miles of railroads in operation in the United 
States. 

The annual construction of railroads during the eleven 
years from 1850 to 1860, inclusive, was as follows : 

In 1850 1,369 miles. In 1856. 3,642 miles. 

-1851 1,961 " -1857 2,487 " 

-1852 1,926 " -1858 2,465 " 

-1853 2,452 " -1859 1,821 " 

' - 1854 1.360 - - 1860 1,846 " 

- 1855 1,654 - 

22,983 - 

A ratio of increase of 240 per cent, or three times as 
many miles as had ever been built before in this coun- 
try. 

The annual construction of railroads from 1860 to 1879, 
the high protection period, was as follows : 

In 1861 651 miles. In 1867 2,449 miles. 

-1862 834 - -1868 2,979 - 

-1863 1,050 - -1869 4,615 - 

-1864 738 - -1870 6,070 - 

- 1865 1,177 - 

-1866 1,716 - 22,279 - 

In 1871 7,379 miles. In 1876 2,712 miles. 

-1872 5,878 - -1877 2,281 - 

"1873 4,107 - -1878 2,687 - 

" 1874 2,105 - - 1879 4,721 - 



1875 1,713 



33,583 



Or, an increase, since 1870, of only about fifty per 
cent. 

Thus it appears that there were actually more miles 
of railroad constructed from 1850 to 1860 than from 1860 
to 1870, and the fact, notwithstanding that " the Pacific 
railroad was constructed in the midst of the gigantic out- 



56 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

lays of the war, 51 and that from 1870 to 1880, after the 
population had nearly doubled, the increase of miles was 
only one-half as many more as were constructed during 
the low tariff period, with the Mexican War on our hands. 

In another part of his work, Mr. Blaine says that the 
protectionists attribute the state of extraordinary pros- 
perity during the free trade period from 1850 to 1860, to 
other causes than the low tariff system, to-wit: "to the 
Irish famine, to war, short crops and the unsettled con- 
dition of Europe, and, lastly, to the discovery of gold in 
California." 

The startling proposition that a destitute and famish- 
ing people increase the prosperity of another people will 
have to be dismissed as too frivolous to be seriously dis- 
cussed. The next argument, that the unsettled condition, 
the short crop and war in Europe, gave our farmers 
unprecedented opportunities for the sale of their products, 
may be answered with the statement, that during the last 
period of protection similar conditions prevailed in Europe, 
and that the wars which were waged there during this 
time greatly exceeded in magnitude those of the pre- 
ceding decade. 

As to the acquisition of Mexican territory and the 
gold plethora of 1848-9, Mr. Blaine says: "Moreover, 
an exceptional condition of affairs existed in the United 
States in consequence of our large acquisition of territory 
from Mexico at the close of the war, and the subsequent 
and almost immediate discovery of gold in California. 
A new and extended field of trade was thus opened up, 
in which we had a monopoly, and an enormous surplus of 
money was speedily created from the products of the rich 
mines on the Pacific coast." 

Now, will Mr. Blaine contend that this large acquisi- 



GENERAL EFFECT OF PROTECTIVE SYSTEM. 0< 

tion of Mexican territory, peopled as it was by a few 
destitute greasers, half-breeds and naked savages in 1849, 
bears any comparison to the opening up of our immense 
trans-Mississippi territory through the building of the 
Pacific railroads and their branches, during the protection 
period from 1860 to 1872? 

Did the opening of the fields of trade in the territory 
acquired from Mexico bear the remotest semblance to the 
enormous traffic that lias since sprung up in the western 
and northwestern territories? 

As to his statement that the rich mines of the Pacific 
coast created an immense amount of surplus money, let 
us examine the figures of the tables in appendix D of his 
work. These show the total amount of gold and silver 
coins issued from the mints of the United States in each 
decimal period since 1790. There we find that between 
1841 and 1850 

$ 89,289,817 in gold coin and 

22,368,130 in siver coin were issued; 



total, $111,607,947. 

Between 1850 and 1860 

$330,237,085, gold; 
46,582,183, silver; 



total, $376,819,268. 
Between 1861 and 1870 

$292,409,545, gold; 
13,188,601, silver; 



total, $305,598,146. 

Between 1870 and 1880, 

$392 : 125,751, gold; 
155,123,087, silver; 



total, $547,24§?838. 



58 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

And during the two years from 1881 to 1883 

$208,076,239 gold coin, 

84,268,825 silver coin were issued; 



total, $292,345,064. 

Thus we see that in the space of thirteen years, under 
protection, the grand total in coin issued was $839,593,902. 

Think of it! in the short space of thirteen years of 
protection, over eight hundred and thirty-six million of 
dollars in gold and silver coin against three hundred and 
seventy-six millions during the low tariff decade, from 
1850 to 1860, and then consider Mr. Blaine's assertion 
that the product of the rich mines of the Pacific coast 
was one of the main causes of the general prosperity 
which prevailed in this country during the low tariff 
decade ! Three hundred and seventy million dollars is, in 
Mr. Blaine's estimation, a plethora of surplus money, if 
expended under the low tariff system, but the snug little 
sum of eight hundred and thirty millions, if expended 
under the protective system, is hardly worth mentioning. 

The prosperity of the country, to a large extent, de- 
pends on the amount and value of products exported. 
But, for the exports of our agricultural products, the 
value of which averaged during the last ten years from 
$500,000,000 to $600,000,000 annually, the people of this 
country would be in a sorry plight, indeed. But while 
there has been a steady outward stream of these unpro- 
tected products, what has become of the export trade in 
protected products ? Let us see. 

In 1860, under the tariff for revenue, we exported 
manufactured cotton goods to the value of $10,934,796. 
In 1870, after ten years of protection, these exports had 
dwindled to the insignificant value of $3,787,282, and 
only amounted to $9,981,418 in 1880, or a falling of 



GENERAL EFFECT OF PROTECTIVE SYSTEM. 



59 



$1,000,000 in the value of our foreign sales of cotton 
goods, after twenty years of protection. 

Tobacco figures on the list of exports in 1860 with 
$19,285,957 ; and in 1880, after twenty years of protec- 
tion, we exported $18,442,273, or nearly $1,000,000 in 
value less than in 1860. 

In 1860 the value of exports of furniture and other 
manufactures of wood was $10,047,956. 

In 1880, after twenty years of protection, while the 
total home product of that -industry had reached the value 
of $83,000,000, the value of our exports in those articles 
amounted to $16,237,376. 

In 1860 we sold to foreign nations naval stores to the 
value of $1,969,642, and only $2,452,908 worth in 1880. 

In 1860 the value of exports of metals and their manu- 
facture, exclusive of iron and steel, amounted to $2,121,- 
683, and only $1,928,030 in 1880, an actual decrease of 
$200,000, under the blighting effect of twenty years' 
protection. 

England is selling large quantities of these goods at 
our very doors, to the nearest neighbors south of us, 
where we would, but for the stupidity of our law-makers, 
have a monopoly of the market.* 



*EXPOI7T IN 1880. 


English 
Goods. 


American 
Goods. 


Mexico 


$2,406,000 
2,161,000 

209,000 
3,400,000 
6,100,000 
3,163,000 
1,449,000 

670,000 
17,180,000 
3,081,000 
4,816,000 
5,162,000 
1,020,000 

418,000 


$832,200 
77,700 


Central America 


British Honduras 


66,800 


British West Indies 


131,000 
825,000 


Other West Indies (including Cuba) 


United States of Columbia 


586,000 


Venezuela 

British Guiana 

Brazil 


149,000 

12,800 

687,000 


Uruguay 

Argentine Republic 


52,500 
133,600 


Chili 


217,800 


Ecuador 


104,000 


Peru 


24,000 








$51,235,000 


$3,899,400 



R. K. Bowker's Economic Facts, 



60 



THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 



In 1880 the value of British exports in cotton goods to 
Mexico and the South American States was $51,235,000, 
while ours amounted to the insignificant figure of $3,- 
899,400. But this discrepancy of manufactured exports 
between free-trade England and protectionist America is 
simply astounding, when the facts are considered that in 
1880 the total British exports in metals and textiles 
amounted to the enormous sum of $772,000,000, while the 
exports of similar articles by the great American Republic, 
with double the population, with twice the ingenuity and 
spirit of enterprise, and with fifty times the natural re- 
sources, amounted to the beggarly sum of $24,322,576.* 

In 1855 the total value of British export was $466,- 
764,200, while in 1880 the export value of her woolen and 
cotton fabrics alone amounted to $534,500,000. This is 
what unrestricted commerce is doing for those little 
islands on the European coast. 

Let the humblest American workman reflect, for an 
instant, what the condition of his class would be, if the 



* Articles. 



METALS. 

Brass, copper, and manufactured 
industries, telegraph wires 

Cutlery and hardware 

Firearms 

Foundry products and ma- 
chinery 

I ron and steel, tin, etc 

TEXTILES. 

Cotton goods 

.Into goods 

Linen goods 

Silk goods. 

Woolens, worsteds and mixed 
textiles 



American 
Product'n, 

1880. 


English 
Exports in 

1880. 


American 
Exports in 

1880. 


$672,078,000 

30,000,000 

38,000,000 

' 5,700,000 

214,378,000 
384,000,000 


$237,500,000 

27,000,000 

19,000,000 

6,500,000 

50,000,000 

135,000,000 


$14,116,000 

180,000 
1,100,000 
2,286,000 

5,700,000 
4,850,000 


$521,300,000 

211,000,000 

697,000 

602,000 

41,000,000 

268,000,000 


$534,500,000 

375,000,000 

12,500,000 

30,000,000 

17,000,000 

100,000,000 


$10,216,576 
10,000,000 


216,576 



Foreign 
Imports, 

1880. 



$72,744,000 

1,787,000 

1,900,000 

830,000 

1,227,000 
67,000,000 



$122,-350,000 

30,000,000 

2, >• 50,000 

2^,500,000 

3.',OCO,000 

&5,ooo,ooo 



R. Bowker's Economic Facts. 



GENERAL EFFECT OF PKOTECTIVE SYSTEM. 61 

above figures of the relative value of English and Amer- 
ican exports were reversed. Suppose we were given as 
free a scope to all our individual and national faculties 
and energies as the Britisher has ? Suppose the restrict- 
ive bars across the boundary lines were removed and free 
elbow room given to our enterprising merchants. Sup- 
pose our American "drummer," with his characteristic 
geniality, dash and persistency, be given the whole world 
as a field of operation. How long would it be before we 
would be selling $800,000,000 worth of manufactured 
goods to the foreigner instead of $24,000,000 ; and having 
thus obtained a foothold in the markets of the world, is it 
not plain that our manufacturing plants would be insuffi- 
cient to produce the increased foreign demand, and would 
have to be multiplied ? Would not in that case the de- 
mand for labor be also greatly increased ? And would 
not such a demand have the effect of insuring more per- 
manent work and a higher rate of wages ? 

Is it not plainly apparent from the foregoing exhibits 
that, while we have been using our renowned ingenuity 
in efforts at getting the best bargains from each other, 
and in trying to get rich at the expense of each other, we 
have been losing an incalculable amount of money, and 
golden opportunities also, to increase our common stock 
of wealth through profitable trades with foreign nations? 
And do the above figures not also plainly show that if 
the American people are still more prosperous than the 
people of any other country, it is not from the effect of 
protection, but in spite of it? If in addition to building 
up fabulous private fortunes, in defraying the enormous 
expenses of a great war, and bearing the colossal burdens 
of local taxation, we have been able to apparently hold 
our own, it is due to our incomparable powers of recu- 



62 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

peration, to the steady flood of a valuable immigration, 
and to the almost inexhaustible resources of our fields, 
our forests and our mines. 

If the government of the United States were managed 
upon sound business principles its methods would be busi- 
ness-like, and it would no more exchange a good business 
method for an injurious one than would the private citi- 
zen in the management of his business. 

Let us illustrate for instance : 

A few years ago John Jones was the successful man- 
ager of the Western Manufacturing Company. The con- 
cern has been early established and was in a flourishing 
condition. Under the careful and economical manage- 
ment of Mr. Jones, the company was doing such a thriv- 
ing business that a yearly dividend of 125 per cent was 
divided among the overjoyed shareholders. But, as in 
every corporation where there are factions, jealousies 
arose among them as to who should be in the board of 
directors. The " outs " circulated a thousand lies about 
the "ins," and when the election came around the old 
board was thrown out and a new one stepped in. The 
old manager, who had been so successful in making the 
establishment prosperous, had also to go, and Mr. Joe 
Smith, a man who had the reputation of meddling with 
everybody's business except his own, was put in his place. 
No sooner had the latter assumed his duties than he went 
about upsetting all the rules and methods under which the 
corporation had grown prosperous and wealthy, substi- 
tuting, instead, his own system of running the factory. 
The effect was that the next year the dividends to be 
declared amounted to only eighty-seven per cent. Being 
permitted to remain in charge another year, the dividends 
fell to forty-six per cent, and, instead of apologizing for 



GENERAL EFFECT OF PROTECTIVE SYSTEM. 63 

his shortcomings and resigning his trust, he set up the 
impudent claim that the prosperity of the concern was 
due to him and his new system. "What would sensible 
stockholders have done in that case ? And what is the 
difference in principle between the claims of our protec- 
tionists and this presumptuous manager of this private 
concern ? 

To let well enough alone was not in the programme 
of Mr. Blaine's party of generous income and of liberal ex- 
penditures. The fiscal system which that statesman admits 
had been yielding abundant public revenue, and had placed 
the business of the country in a flourishing condition, did 
not answer their purpose. It was replaced by a system 
which would yield abundant private revenue, and which 
would place the business of a limited number of individu- 
als in a flourishing condition. The national system, which, 
as admitted by Mr. Blaine, " had encouraged the undertak- 
ing of large enterprises, and had secured the general pros- 
perity of the country for a considerable period," was 
supplanted by the sectional one, which, during former 
periods of protection, had become notorious as the Penn- 
sylvania system. If that system ever had any ground of 
justification it was in the early stages of our national ex- 
istence, which, however, I do not admit. War necessities 
and a depleted treasury gave it a colorable excuse, and it 
was acquiesced in by the people as a temporary measure 
of exigency. No such excuses are admissible to-day. Nor 
do the protectionists claim its continuance upon that 
ground. Protective legislation to-day is special legisla- 
tion, without even the color of commonality, and an act 
for the protection of this or that industry is not a public 
but a private measure, and it would be difficult for Mr. 
Blaine, even, to exactly point out the way in which this 
law-making for the benefit of private concerns can con- 
tribute to the marvelous prosperity of the United' States. 



THE EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON 
FARMERS. 



"TVTOW for the claim of the protectionists that the 
1 \| process of taking from John, Dick and Harrj^ and 
giving it to Peter, will enhance the prosperity of all 
four. Let us begin with the larger half of our popula- 
tion, the American agriculturists, and see how their 
interests have been affected by the tariff. There can be 
no controversy upon the statement that of all the great 
interests of the country, agriculture is preeminently the 
most important. The condition of its prosperity consti- 
tutes, as it were, the barometer of the high and low state 
of prosperity of the whole country. If crops are plenti- 
ful and the prices of products are good, the condition of 
all other interests of the country is at once favorably 
affected. The prompt and effectual relief afforded by 
the agriculturists of the country to the prostrated man- 
ufacturers, merchants and tradesmen in 1880 and 1881, 
furnishes the most recent case in proof. It was not pro- 
tection, but the farmers, that set the idle furnaces, the 
hammers and the spindles of the protective industries 
again in motion, and relieved the misery of more than a 
million tramping laborers and mechanics. It was the un- 
protected half of our population that infused new life 
into and rekindled the courage of the other half. 

If the agriculturists of the country are suffering, either 
from natural causes or from the effect of unwise legisla- 
tion, all other great interests of the country suffer in con- 
sequence. History is full of examples substantiating this 
fact. 

As long as Rome was in her ascendancy she retained 

respect for the arts of agriculture. The plains of Italy 

04 



THE EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON FARMERS. 65 

were abundant in crops of various kinds and rich in past- 
ures and flocks. " The main source of wealth among the 
Romans, and their most honorable occupation," says the 
historian Schmitz, " was agriculture." 

The greatest generals and statesmen, after holding for 
a time the helm of the republic and gaining victories and 
triumphs, did not hesitate to return to the plough and live 
in rural retirement. The decadence of agriculture marks 
the decadence of Rome ; it was the beginning of her end. 
Should we forget the great lessons of history ? 

Now let us look into the share the farmer has had in 
the " unexampled prosperity of the country" on account 
of our tariff system. This can best be done by comparing 
its relative effect upon one of the agricultural and one of the 
manufacturing States, respectively; say Illinois and Penn- 
sylvania. Of course, there has always been absolute free 
trade between these two States, and if not interfered with 
by governmental restriction, there is no reason why both 
should not equally prosper. Its citizens are all citizens of 
a common country, bound by every dictate of patriotism 
to practice good fellowship and harmony between each 
other. But beyond such mutual good-will we know of no 
law, human or divine, which places the citizens of one of 
these States under obligations to furnish material aid to 
any of the citizens of the other State, in order to build up 
and carry on some private enterprise, and it would be just 
as absurd, for the Illinois farmer to ask the Pennsylvania 
mine owner to assist him to lift a mortgage from his farm, 
as it is for the Pennsylvania man to ask the Illinois 
farmer to assist him in paying off his hands. In theory, 
this proposition would seem to be unassailable. But let 
us see whether in practice it is so. 

Iron, the principal product of Pennsylvania, is "pro- 



66 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

tected " against foreign competition by the government, 
say fifty per cent in the average ; this, of course, furnishes 
the iron master of that State with the advantage of charg- 
ing, if he chooses to do so, or, if agreed upon by the 
"iron pool," fifty per cent more for his product than he 
could charge without such "protection." 

Breadstuff s and provisions, the principal products of the 
State of Illinois, cannot be " protected " ; that is to say, the 
farmers and stock-raisers of that State cannot, so long as the 
United States has a surplus of those agricultural products 
to sell, charge one cent more for their product than what 
their competitors of the rest of the world get for theirs in 
the London market ; consequently, the exchangeable value 
of the Illinois product is fifty per cent less than that of the 
Pennsylvania product. Or, to be more explicit, under the 
protective tariff the Illinois farmer has to give about the 
same quantity of wheat and bacon for a ton of Pennsyl- 
vania iron that he would for a ton of English iron, with 
this difference, that in the latter case, the fifty per cent 
tax would go into the United States Treasury, while in 
the former, the fifty per cent protection goes into the 
pocket of the Pennsylvania iron-master; and that it is, 
therefore, all the same to Illinois whether the Federal 
custom house is located in New York or upon her own 
borders ; she pays fifty per cent more for the iron she 
needs than she would if permitted to exchange the wheat 
and provisions, not needed at home, with the people who 
do need them but have a surplus of iron to sell. 

To make this matter still clearer, let us suppose a 
Chicago packer, who is also interested in railroad building, 
takes fifteen hundred barrels of pork to Philadelphia with 
the intention of turning the proceeds into steel rails. The 
market price of pork is supposed to be $13.34 per barrel, 



THE EFFECT Otf MOTECTtOtf ON FARMERS. 67 

and Pennsylvania steel rails cannot be had for less than 
$28 per ton, so that for his fifteen hundred barrels of pork 
he would get about 714 tons of Pennsylvania rails. While 
there, he learns that an English vessel with one thousand 
tons of steel rails on board is lying in port. The captain 
offers to sell the rails at $20, cash, per ton, or to take the 
American pork at the market price in exchange. But, 
while closing the bargain a United States custom officer 
steps up with the information that, upon landing, a duty 
of fifty per cent would have to be paid on the rails. As 
this would raise the price of the rails to $30 per ton, the 
Illinois man concludes to buy the Pennsylvania rails. 
However, instead of a thousand tons which, but for the 
interference of the government, he might have had for 
his fifteen hundred barrels of pork, he only receives 714 
tons, or a clear loss for our Illinois man of $5,720. Had 
this amount gone into the United States Treasury, our 
Prairie State friend might have consoled himself with 
the thought that this sum would be expended for the 
public 'benefit, and that he accordingly had performed a 
patriotic act. 

Is not that the old story of the Indian and the white 
hunter over again ? Is it not clear that " free trade and 
protection at the same time" means turkey for Pennsyl- 
vania and buzzard for Illinois, and buzzard for Illinois and 
turkey for Pennsylvania; and that the turkey, that is, the 
marvelous prosperity to which the double S3 T stem is said 
to have contributed, has all gone to Pennsylvania ? 

But in order to remove even the shadow of a doubt 
from the mind of the reader, that such is the actual out- 
come of this double-action system, we will now produce 
in evidence the official figures of the United States Census 
Eeport. 



68 THE FKOTOETIVE TARIFF. 

These will show that the aggregate wealth of the 
State of Pennsylvania in 1850 was $313 per capita, while 
that of Illinois was $183 per capita. During the low 
tariff decade from 1850 to 1860 the State of Pennsylvania 
increased her aggregate wealth to $487 per capita, while 
the State of Illinois increased hers to $509 per capita. 
From 1860 to 1870, under the high protective tariff, when, 
by action of the government, the exchangeable values of 
her main product were enhanced from forty to fifty per 
cent, the State of Penns}4vania increased her wealth to 
$1,081 per capita, while the State of Illinois, whose 
exchangeable value of products was regulated in foreign 
markets, increased hers only to $835 per capita, and dur- 
ing the following decade of high protection for the Penn- 
sylvania product, that State increased her wealth to 
$1,259 per capita, while that of the tributary State of Illi- 
nois increased hers only $1,005 per capita. But to make 
this discrepancy between manufacturing and agricultural 
communities still more glaringly apparent, we will now 
compare the relative effect of this system upon the States 
of Massachusetts and Illinois, respectively. 

In 1850 the aggregate true value of wealth of the 
manufacturing State of Massachusetts, as given in the 
census report, was $577 per capita, while that of the agri- 
cultural State of Illinois, as already shown, was only $183 
per capita. 

During the following decade of comparative non-in- 
terference by the government, from 1850 to 1860, the 
estimated aggregate wealth of Massachusetts increased to 
$662 per capita, or exactly fifteen per cent, while that of 
Illinois increased to $509, or nearly three hundred per cent. 
In 1880, after twenty years' experience, under the system 
of free trade and protection at the same time, the wealth 



THE EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON FARMERS. 69 

of Massachusetts had increased to the enormous figure of 
$1,568 per capita, while that of Illinois had only increased 
to $1,005. 

Thus, it appears that while the wealth of the State of 
Illinois during the ten years under the low revenue 
tariff had trebled, its wealth had only doubled during 
the twenty years of protection. 

Massachusetts, on the other hand, had increased her 
w T ealth at the rate of only fifteen per cent per capita 
during the ten years of low tariff, while she increased her 
wealth 150 per cent during the twenty years of protection. 

Again. Here are the people of the great State of Illi- 
nois, who have been exporting more breadstuffs, pro- 
visions and high wines than the people of any other State 
in the Union, and, consequently, have obtained more for- 
eign capital than any other during the twenty years Of 
protection, have accumulated but one-half of the wealth 
which has been accumulated by Massachusetts, a State 
which exports comparatively nothing, and, consequently, 
has no other resources for the accumulation of her wealth 
than the great sucking-pump placed over the agricultural 
States by a despotic government, falsely styled "the 
government of the people." 

We have seen that in 1850 the total value of wealth of 
the country Avas $7,000,000,000 in round numbers. Of 
that great wealth the farmers owned nearly $1,000,000,000, 
or more than one-half. When, as we have seen, after ten 
years of low revenue tariff the total wealth of the coun- 
try had increased to $16,000,000,000, the farmers' share 
of that wealth was $8,000,000,000, or still one-half. But 
when, in 1880, after twenty years of protection, the na- 
tional wealth had reached $43,600,000,000, the farmers' 
share was but $12,000,000,000, or a little more than one- 



70 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

fourth. Thus, it will appear, that while under a revenue 
tariff the aggregate wealth of one-half of our population, 
namely, the agricultural half, had increased at an even rate 
with the other half during twenty years of protection, 
the farmers' wealth increased only $4,000,000,000, while 
the wealth of the other half increased $23,000,000,000, or 
nearly six-fold. 

The United States Census Eeport contains the further 
interesting information that the value of the farms of the 
country in 1850 was $3,272,000,000 in round numbers. 
This value increased during the low tariff decade to $6,600,- 
000,000, or over one hundred per cent. During the high 
tariff decade, from 1860 to 1870, that value had increased 
to $9,300,000,000, or about forty-one per cent, and be- 
tween 1870 and 1880 it increased to a little over $10,000,- 
000,000, or only nine per cent. So the official statistics 
show that while the value of the farms in the United 
States had doubled under ten years of low tariff, it had 
only increased about seventy-five per cent under twenty 
years of high tariff. 

The gold value of live stock in the United States in 
1850 was $540,000,000. During the ten years of low tariff, 
from 1850 to 1860, that value increased to nearly $11,- 
000,000,000, or one hundred per cent. From 1860 to 1870, 
this value had increased but $217,000,000, or twelve per 
cent, and in 1880 but to $1,500,000,000, or twenty-three 
per cent. Thus it would seem that under ten years of 
low tariff, the value of live stock increased $545,000,- 
000, while under twenty years of high tariff it only in- 
creased $411,000,000. 

The total value of farm machinery in 1850 was valued 
at about $152,000,000. During the ten years of low tariff, 
from 1850 to I860, this value increased to $246,000,000, 



THE EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON FARMERS. 71 

or over sixty per cent. During the twenty years of high 
tariff, from 1860 to 1880, this value increased to $406,- 
000,000, or but little over fifty per cent. 

There is no earthly reason to suppose that this steady 
increase in the general prosperity of the farmer would 
not have continued had the low tariff policy of the gov- 
ernment not been changed to one of protection. That is 
to say, if the rate of increase in the aggregate agri- 
cultural wealth had not been interfered with by 
special legislation, the' total agricultural wealth of the 
country would have been in 1880 over $32,000,000,000, 
instead of only $12,000,000,000, or nearly three times 
greater. 

But this uneven rate of increase of wealth in the man- 
ufacturing and agricultural States, respectively, which, 
with the certainty of the law of gravitation, must be the 
ultimate effect of this protective system, becomes still 
more glaringly apparent when the per capita subdivision 
of the aggregate wealth of these respective States is scru- 
tinized. 

It will hardly be questioned that the wealth in the 
agricultural States is more evenly divided among its 
inhabitants than in the manufacturing States; that is, 
the number of excessively wealthy individuals is less 
and the number of property owners greater. The mill- 
ionaire mill-owner, who employs five thousand persons, 
generally owns all the wealth himself ; still, for the con- 
venient use of the statistician this wealth is divided per 
capita among the propertyless operatives, upon paper. 

The only wealth generally owned by the manufactur- 
ing population consists in its labor, and hereafter it will 
be demonstrated, that the hundreds of thousands of 
operatives in the cotton and woolen mills of New England, 



72 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

in the mining regions of Pennsylvania, in fact, in almost 
all large manufacturing and mining centers, live to-day 
from hand to mouth, and that they do not own a cent's 
worth of the per capita wealth with which the popula- 
tion of their respective States is credited. 

Let us illustrate : Suppose the great Pullman manu- 
facturing establishment near South Chicago, with all its 
lands and appurtenances, was estimated at $10,000,000; 
how much per capita of this wealth belongs to any 
one of the thousands of workmen there employed ? Not 
a dollar. And still each one of these operatives is figur- 
ing as a part owner on paper of that wealth in the per 
capita calculations of Illinois in the Census Commis- 
sioner's report. 

Only about one-tenth of the population of the State 
of Illinois over ten years of age, according to the last census 
report, was engaged in manufacture and mining, w T hile 
the State of Pennsylvania thus employed over one-fifth, 
and the State of Massachusetts nearly one-third. 

Suppose the aggregate estimated wealth of Illinois 
was divided among the remaining nine-tenths of her 
population above ten j^ears, that of Pennsylvania among 
the remaining four-fifths, and that of Massachusetts 
among the remaining two-thirds, would not this per 
capita calculation show a more glaring discrepancy in the 
relative effect of protection upon the prosperity of the 
agricultural and manufacturing sections of the country, 
respectively ? 

THE " HOME MARKET " FALLACY. 

u But, don't you see, my granger friend," we hear the 
manufacturers say, "do we not furnish you with a 
permanent, adequate and profitable home market for 
ninety per cent of all you are producing? Will you 



THE EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON FARMERS. 73 

throw away the chance of keeping such reliable cash cus- 
tomers who are furnishing you with a ready market, and 
thereby, in a large measure, saving you all the expense of 
ocean transportation, for the uncertainty of the for- 
eign market? Don't you see the more men the manufact- 
urers can employ the more mouths there are for you to 
feed, and the more money they are making the more they 
can pay you for your produce ? Don't believe those ' free 
trade theorists,' because your interests are identical with 
ours, and by helping us with your vote in maintaining 
the protective system you are helping yourself." 

Such are the sophistries preached to our farmers to 
reconcile them to their pack-mule fate. The term 
" home-market " is as deceptive as the term " protection," 
and is used by the protectionist to mislead the farmer in 
the same manner as " protection to home labor " is used 
to mislead the working-man. But the catchword u pro- 
tection " against the pauper labor of Europe, which has 
proven so effective with the working-men, cannot suc- 
cessfully be used with the farmer. To rob him in safety 
and to use his vote to perpetuate the system, the catch- 
word " home-market " had to be invented. It has ren- 
dered excellent service in benumbing the understanding 
of the farmer of the grain -growing States of Illinois, 
Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Michigan, and 
will, no doubt, do so again. It is sought to impress the 
farmer with the idea, that the encouragement and exten- 
sion of manufacturing industries are what the farmer is in 
need of in order to dispose of all his products at home ; 
that if the import of foreign commodities was prohibited 
so that the American manufacturers could monopolize 
the supply, the additional working-men required by these 
manufacturers would increase the demand for agricultural 



74 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

produce, to such an extent, as to render the export of the 
small surplus of ten per cent of the whole product quite 
unnecessary. 

Where these additional working-men are to come 
from, whether they intend to import them on the free- 
trade-in-labor plan, or whether they would draw them 
from other occupations which are getting along without 
protection they carefully avoid to state. 

If it means more foreign labor, we are at a loss to dis- 
cover the benefit to the American working-men; if it 
means to transfer labor from the farm or other unpro- 
tected industries, we cannot see how this shift of employ- 
ment will increase the demand for agricultural produce. 

Should a farmer, a barber or a house-servant change 
his occupation by working in coal mines, in an iron 
foundry or in a woolen mill, he would probably consume 
as much food as he did before ; that is 3 if he could get it. 
In order to fortify their " home-market " theory, protec- 
tionists are prone to talk flippantly of the small surplus of 
agricultural products which is exported, and, relying on 
the credulity of the people, venture to state that the aver- 
age amount of such export to be but ten per cent of the 
whole product. 

"What are the facts in the case ? From the census re- 
port of 1880, it appears that the grand total farm product 
of that year was valued at about $2,500,000,000. Of this 
produce an amount to the value of $242,000,000 was cot- 
ton, of which $211,000,000 was exported, leaving cereals 
and provisions to the value of $2,289,000,000. Of this 
amount $375,000,000 worth was exported, leaving $1,914,- 
000,000 worth to be consumed at home. It is to be sup- 
posed that the farmers of the North and the cotton- 
growers of the South, who with their families and 



THE EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON FARMERS. 75 

dependents numbering one-half of our population, have 
as good appetites as the mechanics or tradesmen, and it 
stands to reason, therefore, that they absorbed one-half of 
our agricultural products, or about $950,000,000 worth 
themselves. 

The remaining half must, accordingly, have been con- 
sumed by the three millions of persons and their families 
in protected industries, and by the seven millions of per- 
sons and their families employed in the other pursuits. 
To be liberal, we will say that the latter seven million per- 
sons with their families consumed only two-thirds, or 
$620,000,000 worth, leaving $330,000,000 worth to the 
protected classes — would not this comparatively small per- 
centage constitute the home market furnished by the 
manufacturers, or $45,000,000 less than the value of prod- 
ucts sent abroad to the "European paupers"? 

But the crowning feature of this " home-market " ele- 
phant is the exhibit of congressional statistics, in which 
the exports of farm produce for the past sixty years are 
calculated. From this exhibit it appears that the Amer- 
ican agriculturist has sold in the European market, 
during the twenty-three years from 1860 to 1883, bread- 
stuffs, provisions and cotton to the enormous value of 
over $8,000,000,000. This fact alone should be sufficient 
to absolutely dispose of the absurd claim of the protec- 
tionists that it is the " home-market," created by the pro- 
tected industries, which secures prosperity to the farmer, 
and that an increase of manufactories would absorb all 
agricultural surplus. Where was the "home market," 
with its all-absorbing qualities, during those twenty-three 
years of high protection % The exports of cereals and of 
cotton since 1860, from year to year, have been on the 
increase in spite of protection and in spite of the en or- 



76 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

mous increase of manufactories. It is, therefore, evident 
that unless the protectionists succeed in erecting a factory 
upon the corner of every potato-patch and cotton-field in 
the United States, their " home market " theory will 
never be anything but a glittering generality for the 
annual stump-speaker's elucidation. 

But what has become of the $8,000,000,000 received 
by the farmer and cotton-planter, less freight, commission 
and insurance, in pay for their products in the course of 
twenty-three years ? What have the farmers and cotton- 
planters to show for this plethora of gold thrown into 
their laps by their pauper customer ? If they have not been 
able to meet their expenses, if, instead of growing pros- 
perous and pecuniarily independent with all this enormous 
wealth, they are unable to keep their heads above water, 
if the agriculturists are in debt, if a large number of 
their farms are mortgaged, there must be a screw loose 
somewhere. The American farmer is reputed to live 
comfortably, but he is not known to be a spendthrift, and 
if he were allowed to dispose of his earnings to the best 
advantage, as he understands it, there is no earthly reason 
why he should not be as prosperous and happy as the 
Massachusetts manufacturer. 

A few years ago the Chicago Tribune was asked by an 
Illinois granger " how much tribute the farmers of Illinois 
had to pay for the support of our infant industries." 
Please give us the "cold facts," said the granger, "to 
paste in our hats." To these inquiries the Tribune re- 
plied : 

"The cold facts may give our granger reader a chill 
colder than does the frosty weather, unless perchance his 
indignation should warm him up. We will classify a few 
of the items of the expenditure of an Illinois farmer's 



THE EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON FARMERS. Y7 

family, with the amount per cent of tax it pays either to 
the government on the articles imported or to the manu- 
facturer if produced in the Eastern States : 

TAXES ON AN ILLINOIS KITCHEN. 

Per cent. 

The iron the stove is made of 45 

Hollowware, pots and kettles .53 

Copper and brass utensils, if any 45 

Crockery of the commonest kind 55 

Glassware, of the cheapest kind 45 

Table cutlery and spoons 45 

Pickled or salted fish . . 25 

Salt 36 

Sugar : 48 

Vinegar 36 

Pickles , 35 

Kice 123 

Oranges and other foreign fruits, about 20 

TAXES ON AN ILLINOIS PARLOR. 

Carpet, if made of druggets. 74 

Carpet, if made of tapestry 68 

Furniture 35 

Wall paper 25 

Window curtains 45 

Looking-glass 60 

Ornaments or knick-knacks 35 

TAXES ON AN ILLINOIS WARDROBE. 

Men's clothing, of wool 48 

Woolen hosiery and undershirts 75 

Cotton hosiery and undershirts 45 

Woolen hats and caps .75 

The farmer's wife's black silk dress (less now) 60 

Gloves 60 

Blankets 60 

Alpaca dresses 63 

Any other woolen dresses. . . . , 70 

A pair of scissors 45 

Brass pins 30 

Hairpins , 45 



73 Tfi# Protective Tariff. 

Per cent. 

Penknives , 50 

Needles 25 

Steel pins 45 

Ink 25 

Paper 20 

Razors 45 

TAXES ON SUNDRIES. 

Castor oil 102 

Castile soap 50 

A dose of Epsom salts 30 

Insect powder 20 

Salad oil ; . .34 

The commonest window glass for houses 80 

Paint, white lead for the farm-house 54 

Brick 35 

Roofing slates 30 

Horseshoe nails. 31 

Trace-chains 53 

A handsaw 40 

Files 40 

Spool thread' 60 

Bags and bagging for grain 40 

A burr stone , 20 

Combs and brushes 30 

A wooden pipe , . .80 

An alpaca umbrella 50 

Any iron or steel a farmer may need, average of 45 

Tin cups, skimmers, dippers and all tinware 42 

Tin plate for canning meats and fruits 34 

Fencing boards, $2 per thousand. 

Pine boards for building, about 20 

If planed 33 

Fencing posts, about 30 

Shingles for roof 25 

Lath for house building 20 

Barbed wire for fencing . . .55 

If, before " pasting these cold facts in their hats," as 
recommended by the Tribune, those of our western farm- 
ers who vote for Congressmen supporting this double- 



TM£ EFFIJC? OF PROT^CflON Otf FAftMEftS. ?9 

action system would take a look at their account books 
and see how much money they have spent for house- 
hold goods, for farming utensils, lumber, etc., etc., during 
the high protection period, and deduct the percentage of 
the tax (the farmers usually not buying imported goods), 
the result would serve as an eye-opener to make clear 
to them, where the lion's share of the $8,000,000,000 
has gone. It would also give our Illinois farmer, more 
particularly, an inkling how it happened, that during the 
twenty years of protection, the manufacturing but nat- 
urally poor commonwealth of Massachusetts accumulated 
twice as much wealth as did his own State, while dur- 
ing the ten years preceding, when the low tariff system 
prevailed, the wealth of Illinois had trebled, that of 
Massachusetts only increasing fifteen per cent. 

And after a careful " rekonin " it might, perhaps, dawn 
upon our farmer that for every dollar's purchase made for 
his household and farm he has been paying fifty cents more 
for the benefit of somebody else. Should he "figger" 
a little further and add up these extra fifty cents on these 
dollar purchases during the twenty years of protection, he 
would doubtless find that the sum total exceeds the amount 
he was compelled to borrow from a New England Loan 
and Trust Association to keep going, and that, conse- 
quently, but for this extra tax he would have a small 
amount of savings in his little tin box instead of a copy 
of a good-sized mortgage upon his farm. 

This might set him to thinking also where that " Boston 
money" all comes from, since he has never heard of gold 
or silver mines, or, in fact, of any other great natural re- 
sources in any of the New England States — ice and sea- 
weed excepted. 

If after considering these things our Illinois farmer 



80 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

has a thimbie-f ull of brains left, he will perceive that, while 
this "home market" theory is undoubtedly a very "soft 
thing " for his New England brethren, it is an exceedingly 
" hard thing " for him. It might then, also, occur to him 
that in voting these long years for the men " who saved 
the Union," for " protection to home industry" and such 
balderdash, he has been voting a good share of the pro- 
ceeds of his own " industry " into the pockets of the east- 
ern manufacturers. 

Now, if this system had the indemnifying effect of 
enhancing the price of things the farmer has to sell corre- 
spondingly with the price of things he has to buy, this extra 
burden would not be so oppressive to bear ; but the very 
opposite has always been the effect of the protective tariff 
in this country. 

The market reports of the leading daily and commer- 
cial papers of the country for the last fifty years show, 
that the introduction of high protective tariff s was invari- 
ably followed by a reduction in prices of farmers' products, 
while under the low tariffs the prices increased. 

From 1842 to 1846, for instance, when the tariff was 
excessively protective, the average price of wheat was 
eighty-two cents and corn forty-eight cents per bushel. 
From 1846 to 1850, under the low tariff system, wheat 
averaged $1.10 and corn fifty-seven cents. But on the 
6th of July, 1887, after a quarter of a century of high 
protection, the price of red winter wheat, which had been 
declining from year to year, was quoted in the Chicago 
market at seventy cents and corn at thirty-nine and one- 
half cents per bushel. 

Then there is the item of transportation which bears 
heavier upon the western farmer than upon any other 
industry. Low freight means high returns to the farmer, 



THE EFFECT OF PROTECTION" ON FARMERS. 81 

and every species of taxation, every public measure 
which, directly or indirectly, enhances the cost of trans- 
portation draws directly upon the pocket of the farmer. 

Volumes have been written and thousands of speeches 
made, and perhaps justly, about overcharges by railroads 
and their large dividends upon watered stock. Farmers 
themselves have organized into innumerable granges in 
order to more effectually resist the extortions of railroad 
monopolies, and last, but not least, Congress has called 
into existence an Inter-State Commission to keep the 
transportation companies within bounds. But very little 
if anything has been said about the fact that these com- 
panies were prevented by the United States government 
in the first place from building their roads with as little 
expense as possible. 

In 1880 we had 115,000 miles of railroads, 80,000 of 
which have been built under high protection for the Penn- 
sylvania iron-masters. One hundred tons of rails are 
required for each mile of road, upon which a duty of 
$28 a ton was collected, making the increase paid $224,- 
000,000. The duty on the finer iron entering into the 
manufacture of the rolling-stock of the roads has been 
estimated as large as the duty on the rails, thus enhancing 
the cost to $448,000,000. Taking the duty for the iron 
used in building bridges and the increased cost on 
tools and articles consumed by laborers, we have a grand 
total additional expense of $800,000,000, upon which 
at least the interest of $50,000,000 has had to be paid 
annually in enhanced freight by the farmer. 

While the farmers are thus steadily and systemat- 
ically bled to death, the great bulk of their products is 
sold both in Europe and in the home market at prices 
fixed in London and Liverpool. Should any of them be 



82 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

in doubt upon the point, let him for a few days examine 
the market reports of Liverpool and London and compare 
them with tho$e of New York and Chicago. 

But all these evils and exactions which the farmer has 
borne for twenty-five years are insignificant compared to 
the disastrous consequences which are in store for him, 
and which must inevitably result from this short-sighted, 
Chinese-wall policy of isolation. England, with whom we 
have persistently refused to trade upon an equitable 
basis, has been looking elsewhere for her bread-stuff sup- 
ply, and finally has found it in her own colonies, the 
East Indies and Australia. Eight years ago the shipment 
of wheat from India was too small to be quoted at Liver- 
pool, but it has increased from year to year until now it 
reaches the enormous figure of sixty millions of bushels per 
year, and while it costs our western farmer from thirty 
to thirty-five cents to raise a bushel of wheat, the cost of 
production in India is less than twelve cents a bushel. 

From the statement of the British-India office, dated 
Calcutta, February 12, 1886, in reference to the prospect 
of the wheat crop for 1885-6, it appeared that the 
wheat area contained nearly 25,000,000 acres. As a 
natural consequence of this additional source of supply 
our wheat export has steadily decreased for the last six 
years, and so has the price. 

And what will be the final result ? It may be seen 
in the county records of our farming communities all 
through the West. They show the alarming state of 
affairs, that half the farms in the great Mississippi Val- 
ley are mortgaged beyond redemption, and that the 
much- vaunted independent American agriculturist is on 
the brink of becoming the dependent tenant of an Ameri- 
can landlord. 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION OK THE WAGES OF 

LABOR. 



OF all the various questions entering into this tariff 
controversy the question of the wages of labor is 
undoubtedly the most important. There is no better evi- 
dence of the general prosperity of a country than the fact 
that there is work at remunerative wages for every per- 
son desiring work. If it were true that a tariff on im- 
ports could be so constituted as to secure to the working- 
men of this country steady work at living wages, there 
would be little opposition among the people to the exist- 
ing high tariff. 

Protection was not always demanded in the interest 
of American labor. At the beginning it was asked to 
make America, industrially, independent of Europe. 
The next pretense was to shield the dearer capital of the 
United States invested in manufacture against the cheap 
capital of Europe. Industrial independence having since 
been fully secured, and the plea of cheap European cap- 
ital being too plainly in the interest of the manufacturer, 
these pretenses were abandoned and that of "protection 
for American labor against the pauper labor of Europe " 
adopted. 

Of all the devices to increase the profits of the manu- 
facturer this last pretext has proved the most effective, as 
pretexts always will prove which are based upon the 
prejudices, ignorance and stupidity of man. If it were 
true that the low or revenue tariff system is detrimental 
to labor, and the high protective system is beneficial, 

83 



84 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

then these relative effects must necessarily be similar 
wherever the one or the other prevails, or, in other words, 
if the assertion of the protectionist is correct, wages 
ought to be low in low tariff countries and high in high 
tariff countries. 

If it were true that the high protective system has the 
effect of increasing the wages of labor in the United 
States, where work is more abundant and competition 
among laborers less, this beneficent effect ought to be still 
more apparent in countries where work is comparatively 
scarce and labor abundant. Consequently, the wages 
paid to labor in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, where 
high protective tariffs prevail, should be higher than in 
England, where every protective feature is eliminated 
from the tariff, and in China, where foreign imports are 
almost wholly prohibited, the wages of labor ought to be 
highest. The singularity of the very contrary effect, how- 
ever, must be apparent to the most obtuse " protection- 
ist's" mind. 

Thus it appears that in China, where the "home indus- 
tries" are protected by a high stone wall against the 
" pauper labor" from all other countries, the wages of 
labor is so low that the monthly earnings of a Chinese 
laborer would hardly cover the expenses of one square 
meal for one of our Pennsylvania protectionists. In 
Germany, with a higher tariff than France, the average 
standard of wages is below that of the latter country and 
not so high as in Belgium, where a tariff for revenue only 
is laid, and only about one-half as high as that of free- 
trade England. In Italy and Spain, with almost prohib- 
itory tariffs, wages are lower than in Germany. 

The following table of wages paid weekly in the dif- 
ferent European countries is to be found on page 2388, 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON THE WAGES OF LABOR. 



85 



vol. II, of the report of the United States Tariff Com- 
mission : 



Occupations. 


Germany. 
Protection. 


France. 
Protection. 


Belgium. 
Free Trade. 


England. 
Free Trade. 


Bricklayers 


$3.45 
4.00 
4.18 
4.60 
4.35 
3.90 
4.95 
3.30 
3.00 
4.87 
2.60 


$4.00 
5.00 
5.42 
4.90 


$6.00 
6.00 
5.40 
4.20 
5.40 
4.40 
4.80 

' 8.00 


$ 8.12 
8.16 


Masons 


Carpenters 


8.25 


Painters 


7.25 


Plasterers 


8.10 


Blacksmiths 


8.12 


( abinet makers 

Dyers 


7.70 
7.00 


Weavers 

Grinders in glasswork . 
Common laborers 


5.40 

10.92 

5.00 



The industrial history of England furnishes the most 
conspicuous example in proof that the protective policy is 
rather injurious than beneficial to labor. 

Fifty years ago, under the restrictive system, her work- 
ers did not receive two-thirds the wages of what they are 
receiving to-day.* But the most striking feature in this rise 
of wages is the fact, that the wages of labor employed in the 



"^Comparison of Wages in Great Britain Fifty Years Ago and 
at Present Time. 

[From "Miscellaneous Statistics of the United Kingdom, " and Porter's " Prog- 
ress of the Nation. 1 '] 



Occupation. 


Place. 


Wages 
FiftyYrs. 

Ago. 
per week. 


Wages 

Present 

Time. 

per week. 


Increase. 
Amount. 
Per Cent. 


Carpenters 

Bricklayers , 

Masons 

Pattern weavers 

Weavers 

Warpers and beamers 

Winders and reelers 

Weavers (men) 

Reeling and warping 

Spinning (children) 


Glasgow 

Huddersfield. . 

Bradford 


14s 

15s 

14s 

16s 

12s 

17s 
6s 

8s Sd 
7s 9(7 
4s M 


26s 

27s 

23s M 
25s 
26s 
27s 
lis 

20s 6d 
15s 6d 
lis 6(7, 


12s (plus) 85 

12s (plus) 80 

9s 8d (plus) 69 

9s (plus) 55 

14s (plus) 115 

LOs (plus) 58 

5s (plus) ^3 

12s Sd (plus) 150 

7s 9d (plus) 100 

7s 1(7 (plus) 160 



See foot of Page 91. 



86 



THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 



cotton and woolen industries has much more than doub- 
led during the last fifty years. The export value of the 
cotton and woolen products amounted to the enormous 
sum of $534,000,000, which plainly shows that labor must 
look for steady work and higher wages to an extended 
instead of a restricted market. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the English manufact- 
urers pay double the wages of their German competitors, 
and in the face of the high duty put upon their products 
by the German government, English goods are sold in 
Germany in competition with her own low-wage goods, 
and we have not heard of any English manufacturer 
asking to be protected against the " pauper labor" of 
Germany ? And why ? First, because Germany has not 
kept pace with England in industrial progress and because 
of the established fact that a high rate of wages insures 
higher efficiency in labor, f 

Comparison of Seamen's Money Wages in Great Britain per 
Month at 1850 and the Present Time. 



[From the 


" Progress of Merchant Shipping Return.' 1 ] 








1850, 
Sailing. 


Present 
Time, 
Steam. 


Increase. 




Amount. 


Per Cent. 


Bristol 

Glasgow 


45s 
45s 
50s 
50s 
45s 


75s 
70s 

67s m 
85s 
75s 


30s 

25s 

UsQd 

35s- 

30s 


66 
55 


Liverpool (1) 


33 


™ (2) 


70 


London 


66 









•i-The rate of wages will always be found to be the productiveness of the 
wage-earner. It must always be borne in mind that the great law of average 
governs this as well as every other problem in this world. No two workmen, 
even working side by side, will receive precisely the same wages in proportion 
to the amount of their respective productions. Their wages may be exactly the 
same, but their production will differ more or less. So, when two men work 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON THE WAGES OF LABOR. 87 

On the other hand, American wheat and pork pro- 
duced by unprotected labor are sold at a profit in France 
and Germany against all other countries, although these 
countries have laid discriminating duties upon these pro- 
ducts. 

In the United States the standard of wages has 
always been higher than in Europe, under both high 
and low tariffs, or without any tariff, as was acknowl- 
edged by Mr. Hamilton himself in his famous report 
on manufactures, long before the laying of any tariff. 
The causes are entirely disconnected with the tariff 
and absolutely exceptional. In the first place, the very 
newness and vastness of our domain, the daily open- 
ing of new fields of agriculture and of new mines, the 
building of new railroads, of canals and other waterways, 
the laying out of new towns and cities, but principally 
our free institutions, produce conditions favorable to labor 
not prevailing in any other country on the globe, Austra- 
lia, also a new country, perhaps excepted. It necessarily 
follows that labor is here in greater demand than else- 
where, and more especially in unprotected industries, such 
as agricultural and domestic help, labor in the building 
trade, in transportation, etc., etc., where the demand is 
generally in excess of the supply. Consequently, the 
wages must, in the average, be higher than in other coun- 
tries where no such exceptional conditions prevail. 

In the second place, these higher wages are not 

side by side, one receiving two dollars a day and the other three dollars, the 
amount produced by the latter will not necessarily, or even probably, exceed 
the amount produced by the former by the exact difference in their wages, or 
in the exact proportion. But if we could ascertain the exact productive value 
of 100,000 laborers at two dollars a day each, and of another 100,000 at three dol- 
lars a day each, we should most certainly find that the productive value of the 
higher-paid class exceed that of lower-paid class by more than fifty per cent. 

Thomas A. Shearman. 



88 



THE PROTECTIVI 



LRIFF. 



secured or maintained (most particularly in protected 
industries) by the voluntary action of the protected bosses, 
but through the compulsory agencies of organized labor. 
With the exception of our agriculturists and common 
laborers, there is hardly a branch of industry or trade in 
the United States the laborers of which are not organ- 
ized, and it is to these organizations, and not to the gov- 
ernment, that the American working-men are looking, 
and are compelled to look, for protection. 

Mr. Powderly, the head of the organization of the 
Knights of Labor, in a paper explaining the reasons for 
founding this order, says : 

" The principal object of the trades-unions was to reg- 
ulate the rate of wages.' 5 

" The fierce competition," exclaim the Commissioners 
of the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, in their report 
for 1886, "begotten of a desire for great and sudden 
riches, has in later years driven multitudes of men into 
organizations, who began life with the belief that their 
individual effort was guarantee enough for their indus- 
trial freedom and prosperity." 

In another part of the same report the commissioners 
continue : 

" Under primitive conditions men only have what they 
can get and hold by force ; so labor has fought for all it 
has and retained it only as long as the struggle was in 
its favor. By this sort of experience the e organizations 
have come to look upon force as the only agency through 
which to hope for any recognition. If the time shall 
ever come when another principle shall be recognized, 
and might shall no longer he constituted right, no doubt all 
organizations will alike cheerfully lay off their armor 
and devote their energies to higher and worthier objects." 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON THE WAGES OF LABOR. 89 

But skilled labor, which thus protects itself, also im- 
plies superior intelligence and ingenuity. A skilled iron- 
worker, for instance, thrown out of employment in his 
particular branch of manufacture, will readily adapt him- 
self to almost any kind of work in the iron trade. Skilled 
labor in manufacture has this additional advantage over 
the unskilled, that it is necessarily limited in quantity, 
owing to the continual expansion of manufacture, and will 
always remain limited. Skilled labor in factories is, there- 
fore, especially interested in not having the market for its 
product restricted, but in having it as much as possible 
enlarged and increased. A largely increased demand of 
products from anywhere necessarily enhances the value of 
skilled labor and, consequently, its remuneration, and any 
law restricting the sale of its products, at home or abroad, 
is a law for the depreciation of the value of skilled labor 
and the consequent lowering of its wages. 

The rate of wages of unskilled labor, which is beyond 
the control of labor unions, and is entirely subjected to 
the law of supply and demand, generally is about the 
same in any one section of the country, but varies 
greatly between the sections. The standard of these 
wages in some localities and for certain periods is much 
higher than in others ; in New York, for instance, it is lower 
than in Chicago, or lower in Massachusetts than in Iowa, 
or vice versa, a circumstance which plainly shows that 
labor is not affected by the tariff on imports, but is sub- 
ject to the law of supply and demand. At one time New 
York may be overflowing with unskilled labor, while Illi- 
nois is in want of it ; but the process of equalization is 
slow and often difficult, and, while in the former State 
plenty of labor can be had at $1 per day, it may be scarce 
in Illinois at $1.50. The great bulk of unskilled labor in 



90 THE PROTETCIVE TARIFF. 

the different sections of the country is employed upon the 
farms, or in the construction of railroads and in transpor- 
tation, and it may be said that the average wages paid in 
these branches of industry is about the standard of wages 
paid to unskilled labor in ail other occupations in their 
respective sections of country. It cannot be otherwise, 
because labor, like water, seeks its level.* 

Owing to its superior effectiveness, skilled labor in the 
cotton, woolen and silk factories in the United States 
practically earns higher wages than similar labor in Eu- 
rope. It has been ascertained that in our cotton mills, 
for instance, the operatives produce one-third more cotton 
goods per day, in the average, than the operatives in 
English factories, and almost four times as much as the 
factory hands in Germany. The w T ages of skilled labor 
in factories also varies more or less, according to circum- 
stances, which shows that, outside of the causes given 
above, calculations or generalizations upon this or that 
theory are unsatisfactory and not conclusive. 

The absurdity of the claim that protection has the 
effect of enhancing and of regulating the rate of wages 
is admirably illustrated by the following table, computed 
by Mr. Nordhof from the last census report, showing the 
yearly earnings of the cotton and woolen operatives in the 
different sections of the country. In woolen mills the 
average yearly earnings are as follows : 

*The difference in wages in the same industries in different sections of the 
United States is well illustrated in the following returns of wages in the iron 
industries of different States, made under the census of 1880 : Unskilled labor 
in blast furnaces in Virginia, eighty-two cents per day ; in Alabama, ninety- 
eight cents ; in Pennsylvania, $1.09, and in Missouri, $1.29. Skilled labor in iron 
rolling-mills in Alabama, $2.25 per day ; in Massachusetts, $2.70 ; in Pennsyl- 
vania, $3.03; in Ohio, $3.87, and in Kentucky, $4.62. The yearly average wages 
in the aggregate iron industries of the different sections of the United States is 
reported as follows : Eastern States, $417; Western, $396 ; Pacific, $354 ; South- 
ern, $304. David A. Wells. 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON THE WAGES OF LABOR. 91 

Connecticut $335 New York $285 

Maine 320 New Hampshire 280 

Pennsylvania 300 Vermont 270 

New Jersey , 300 Indiana 230 

Massachusetts 320 Ohio 196 

In cotton industries they are as follows : 

New Hampshire $255 South Carolina $190 

Massachusetts 251 Maryland 188 

Rhode Island 250 Georgia 180 

Pennsylvania 250 Tennessee 160 

Ohio 250 Alabama 160 

Connecticut 242 Virginia 150 

New York 281 North Carolina 135 

Why is it that the operatives in the cotton-mills of 
Maine, New Hampshire and New Jersey earn upon an 
average $255 a year, while those in the great and flour- 
ishing State of New York receive only $218, those in Vir- 
ginia $150, and those in North Carolina must content 
themselves w r ith the " pauper wages " of $135 a year ? 
Why is it that the woolen-mills of Connecticut pay their 
operatives $335 a year on an average, while those in 
"wool-producing" Ohio pay theirs but $196? We don't 
know that there is any more protection for cotton goods 
manufactured in Virginia and the Carolinas than for 
those manufactured in Maine, Connecticut and New Jer- 
sey, nor is it clear why the workmen in the woolen-mills 
of the State of Ohio, where both raw wool and the manu- 
factured fabric are highly protected against the " pauper 
product " of Europe, should earn a little more than half 
the wages of their fellow operatives in the wooden-nut- 
meg State. 

Thus do these census figures furnish undisputed proof 
that the tariff upon imported goods has nothing whatever 
to do with the rate of wages, but that it is dependent alto- 
gether upon other causes, the chief of which is " the law 
of supply and demand " and the greater or less effective- 
ness for organized labor. 



92 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

This inequality of wages in the different sections of 
the country may also be only apparently so. It may be 
that if rent and household expenses necessary to support 
his family are considered, a man earning $280 in New 
Hampshire can live as comfortably as the other who 
earns $335 in Connecticut, and the man who earns $218 
in New York may not live so well as the other who 
earns but $160 in Tennessee. But the main cause of this 
inequality is probably to be found in the circumstance 
that the labor of these low-wage factories is chiefly com- 
posed of females and children. This helpless class is 
more easily imposed upon, cannot migrate and has less 
power of resistance than men.* 

Again, an important factor which is generally ignored 
in the discussion of the question of labor is that of 
changing occupations. 

This shifting of labor from one occupation to another 
is peculiarly American. It is a well-established fact that 
no people adapt themselves so readily to a change in the 
pursuits of life as the Americans. This circumstance is 
probably attributable to her free institutions, which are 
unexcept ion ably favorable to the development of individ- 

*In our cotton -mills, especially, the women and children largely exceed the 
men, being often from two-thirds to five-sixths of the whole, and the propor- 
tion of them is steadily increasing. And what are these women and children 
but the very weakest and most dependent of all the people ? They have no 
disposition to agitate. They have no power to change any existing condition of 
society if they would, and their minds do not work in that range, if they could. 
All that is possible to them is to toil and scrimp and bear. Now, for men, the 
strong, those who bear rule, the sovereigns of the land, the hours of labor are 
but ten all over the country, in about every employment where they prepon- 
derate. But where the women and children preponderate, the hours of labor, 
as a rule, are eleven or more. And the question is, why is it, in this land, which 
aims for equality and justice, that the weakest, the most helpless and depend- 
ent, are loaded with the burden of the more hours, while the strong, the able 
to bear and the controlling, only have the less hours to work ? And this question, 
which an operative whispered in our ear in a private room, we have taken the 
liberty to utter aloud. — Report of Massachusetts Labor Bureau. 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON THE WAGES OF LABOR. 93 

ual genius, skill and enterprise. It may be said that of 
all our most successful business men who have reached 
the age of fifty, not one in twenty has continually fol- 
lowed the trade or occupation he started out in when 
young. If one kind of business or occupation does not 
prove remunerative, the American will not lose his time 
and money waiting for better times, or, Micawber-like, 
" for something to turn up," but will immediately cast 
about for something that will pay, continuing to do so 
until he finds the occupation that is satisfactorily remu- 
nerative. Such changes often cause personal inconvenience 
and even hardship. But this trouble is only temporary. 
It is this very display of individual energy and self- 
reliance which has given to the American world-w T ide 
renown. 

This spirit of enterprise and independence is not con- 
fined to business men by any means, but is found among 
all classes and occupations, from the farmer to the clerk 
in the counting-room, from the mechanic in the shop to 
the commercial traveler on the road, and it is this char- 
acteristic trait which renders the shifting of labor in any 
trade or industry from one occupation to another com- 
paratively easy in this country. 

Unskilled labor experiences the least difficulty in 
changing occupations. The main difficulty lies in the 
expense of travel from one section of the country to the 
other. If this obstacle could be overcome it would matter 
very little to the man who handles the shovel, the spade 
or the ax whether he exerted his muscular power and 
dexterity in a rolling-mill, in a factory, in the building 
trade, in digging trenches in our cities, in throwing up 
railroad embankments, in cutting wood and making hay 
upon the farm, or in performing any other manual labor 



94 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

incident to the various interests in this vast and busy- 
country. And yet, in the face of this wonderful quality 
of adaptation, we are constantly told by our protection- 
ists " if you lower or remove the tariff from such and 
such commodities thousands of operatives will be thrown 
out of employment," conveying the inference that in such 
event there is an end to all employment, and these unfort- 
unates will be thrown upon the cold world to beg or to 
starve, or be compelled to go to farming ! 

Such statements are made by interested parties before 
the Ways and Means Committee of the American House 
of Representatives under oath, and upon such random 
statements the fiscal legislation of the country is car- 
ried on. 

A case in point is that of Mr. William H. Lee, a pig- 
iron manufacturer in St. Louis, who testified in 1883 
before the United States Tariff Commission concerning 
the effect of the protective system upon the pig-iron 
industry. One of his statements was that "the doing 
away with the tariff on pig-iron would put five hun- 
dred thousand or six hundred thousand men now engaged 
in the manufacture of pig-iron to raising corn ; would 
take that number of men out of the market as purchas- 
ers of corn, with the fall of the price of corn as the 
natural result." 

In the first place, there is not one-fourth part of the 
number stated by Mr. Lee engaged in the manufacture of 
pig-iron and iron-ore mining put together. From the last 
census report it appears that 159,529 persons were em- 
ployed in the manufacture of iron and steel, 33.286 in 
hardware and cutlery, 145,351 in machinery and 26,248 in 
tin, copper and sheet-iron, or 364,414 persons in all. The 
whole number of persons employed in the mining of iron- 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON THE WAGES OF LABOR. 95 

ore and the manufacture of pig-iron is probably not more 
than 160,000. 

But what of the other two hundred thousand men 
who are employed in the various branches of iron and 
steel manufacture ? Is it probable, if the manufacturers 
of machinery, hardware and cutlery, of tin and sheet-iron, 
etc., etc., could purchase their crude material forty-five 
per cent cheaper than they do now, in which case they 
might advantageously compete with foreign manufact- 
urers, this would have the effect of throwing their oper- 
atives out of employment ? 

But let us suppose the most improbable thing that 
could happen, to-wit : that the placing of pig-iron on the 
free list would throw 150,000 men out of employment. 
Why should they go to raising corn? Would any 
manufacturer, in case his pig-iron establishment were to 
be shut up, invest his capital in the unprofitable business 
of raising corn? Of course not. If he found that the 
government of the United States had ceased meddling 
with the iron business, or had stopped lending its taxing 
powers to private concerns, he would, like every other sensi- 
ble business man, content himself with smaller profits, or, if 
unable to stand alone, seize upon one of the thousands of 
favorable opportunities which are continually open to the 
thrifty and industrious in this vast country, and invest his 
capital in some enterprise that did not need any other aid 
than his own energy and sound judgment. In that case, 
he might, perhaps, give to some of those 150,000 men 
thrown out of the pig-iron business more permanent and 
remunerative employment than they had before. If not, 
some of them, if they felt so inclined, might go into rais- 
ing corn, but all would probably show as much good sense 



96 



THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 



as their former employers, and go to work where plenty 
of employment at living wages was to be found. 

But if any reliance can be placed in the figures of the 
United States Census Report, the pecuniary condition of 
these iron-workers would be improved rather than im- 
paired by a change of occupation. From this report it 
appears that the earnings of the toilers in this branch of 
our protected industries do not exceed the munificent sum 
of $325 a year in the average. Some of these, in their 
march west in quest of a patch of land for the raising of 
corn, might stop half-way, in Illinois, for instance, and find 
work in some industry or trade which never asked for 
protection, nor cared to be protected, and get better pay 
and more permanent work than they had in the iron busi- 
ness ; as, for instance, in any one of these enumerated in 
the following list of unprotected occupations, as found in 
the report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the State 
of Illinois, for 1885. 



AVERAGE YEARLY WAGES. 



Barbers $ 566 22 

Baggagemen 540 

Blacksmiths 622 35 

Blacksmiths' helpers . . 470 86 

Brakemen 508 60 

Bricklayers 637 60 

Brickmakers 416 80 

Bridge builders 737 40 

Butchers 514 70 

Carpenters 552 44 

Clerks 640 83 

Coopers 432 18 

Draughtsmen 860 66 

Locomotive engineers . 1020 17 

Locomotive firemen. . . 670 

Hod-carriers 346 66 



Laborers $ 344 59 

Lumber-shovers 454 71 

Millers 872 

Painters 503 

Paper hangers 601 

Plasterers 625 

Plumbers 581 

Printers 654 

Quarrymen 400 

Stonemasons 467 

Stonecutters 627 07 

Street-car conductors. . 698 40 

Street-car drivers 638 45 

Switchmen 622 6G 

Telegraphers 755 

Teamsters 459 97 



10 
50 
69 
14 
50 
60 
21 



Thus, it would appear that the hod-carrier, who is 
constantly exposed to the competition of the " pauper 
labor " from Europe, earns $21 more than the iron-worker 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION OK THE WAGES OF LABOR. 97 

whose product is protected fifty per cent in the aver- 
age. The common laborer in Illinois earns $19 more, the 
blacksmith $297, and his helper $215 more, the street-car 
driver earns nearly twice as much and the ordinary team- 
ster 1^ as much as the hard-working pig-iron man. 

This scale of wages in the various unprotected trades 
and occupations in the State of Illinois does not materially 
differ from that in any of the other "Western States. 

But neither the iron-worker nor any of the workmen 
employed in our manufacturing industries need leave 
their shops and go to farming, or change their occupation 
for that of blacksmithing, shaving or bricklaying. All 
that is necessary for them to do is to compel their repre- 
sentatives in Congress to remove the onerous taxes on the 
raw material of the American manufacturer, and to lower 
them on the necessaries of life. In that case our manu- 
facturer will be enabled to compete with his foreign com- 
petitor, and by adapting his methods to the wants of the 
foreign consumer will secure a share of his trade, and, 
consequently, additional work for his employes. 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON LABOE IN 
PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 



PROTECTED industries are industries whose prod- 
ucts are protected by a tariff on imports against 
similar products of foreign manufacture. 

Whatever may be the pretext, protection is demanded 
by the manufacturer or mine owner for his product 
against the cheaper product from abroad. Consequently, 
the only labor which can possibly receive any benefit 
from that system is the labor which is employed on 
industries the products of which are exposed to foreign 
competition. All other labor, otherwise employed, is 
necessarily excluded from these supposed benefits. I 
say " supposed " because it is not real, the benefits, if 
there are any, all going to the manufacturer. 

If there is any virtue in the protective system for 
American labor, as claimed, it ought, logically, to be most 
potent where it is most applied, and if the effect of it ren- 
ders the condition of the people prosperous, those who 
are working in and are drawing their wages from these 
industries, as a matter of course, ought to be in the most 
prosperous condition. Now, if it can be shown that pro- 
tection against foreign-made products has the effect of 
promoting the prosperity of the comparatively small 
number of hard-working miners, iron-workers, spinners 
and weavers of our wool and cotton-mills, the protection- 
ists have, at least, a reasonable foothold for their claims. 



LAB0B IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 99 

What is the naked truth about this matter ? What is 
the actual condition of these people ? 

As it is only by comparisons that we can reach cor- 
rect conclusions let us compare notes for awhile. 

From the census report of 1880 it appears that 17,- 
392,099 persons were employed in gainful occupations. 

Of these 7,670,493 were employed in agricultural and 
personal services, 1,810,256 in trades and transportation 
and 3,837,112 in manufacturing, mechanical and mining. 

Thus it will be seen at the outset that of the total 
labor employed four-fifths belong to the unprotected 
class. 

Of the class enumerated " manufacturing, mechanical 
and mining " only about fifteen hundred thousand are 
employed in what are known as protected industries. 

According to the same report the total value of the 
manufactured products in 1860 amounted to $1,885,861,- 
676. The wages paid in the manufacture of these goods 
was $378,878,966, and the cost of material $1,031,605,- 
092. Deducting the amount of the wages and the cost 
of material from the total value of the products there 
remains $475,377,618. 

It must be borne in mind that the workmen were not 
then " protected," still their share in the value of the 
product amounted to twenty per cent. In 1880, when all 
consumers of manufactured goods were taxed from forty 
to fifty per cent for the special benefit of the "poor 
laborer," these laborers' share in the total product was 
only about seventeen per cent, or less than when we had 
not over half the population, not the fifth part of the 
railroads, and only 140,433 manufacturing establishments 
against 253,840 in 1880. 

From the above figures it is evident that the manu- 



100 THE PROTECTIVE TAMEF. 

facturers, who during certain periods have realized enor- 
mous profits from the effect of protection, have never 
offered to share a portion of these profits with their opera- 
tives; and no rational man would suppose that they 
should. They do not engage in manufacturing or mining 
upon the ground of philanthropy, but for the purpose of 
making money. 

It would be childish to expect them to pay higher 
wages to their men than w T hat labor can be had for, sim- 
ply because they are doing a profitable business, and it is 
only a pretense that it is for this purpose the manufact- 
urers ask for governmental protection. 

It is true that since 1860 wages in factories have 
slightly increased, but, as is the case with all stimulants, 
the effect was not permanent. 

The following tabulated statement, compiled by Mr. 
Schoenhof, from the census reports of 1860 and 1880, 
shows what the increase of earnings of our working-peo- 
ple was in the most highly protected industries from 1860 
to 1880. 

^ Per cent 

1860. 1880. increase. 

Woolen and worsted goods $234 $300 28 

Iron and steel 355 390 10 

Cotton 200 246 23 

Machinery , 390 450 15 

Glass 330 375 15 

Jewelry 435 500 15 

Saddlery and harness 350 380 9 

This increase, on an average, was sixteen per cent, and 
this great feat was accomplished in twenty years, while 
the products of the manufacturer were protected with 
forty-five per cent duty against his foreign competitor. 
It must not be forgotten that even this small increase of 
wages, mostly secured during war times, when labor was 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 



101 



less abundant and competition between the home manu- 
facturers limited, was only maintained by organized labor, 
which stoutly resisted every reduction. It must be born 
in mind also that these efforts notwithstanding, the aver- 
age wages in protected industries have steadily declined 
since 1880. 

The proof to this statement has not only been fur- 
nished by the daily press for the last seven or eight years, 
but it may be found in the official reports of the Bureaus 
of Labor Statistics, which of late years have been estab- 
lished in several of the States. 

The last annual report of the statistical bureau of the 
State of Illinois contains the summary of a carefully pre- 
pared table of the rise and fall of wages in 114 occupa- 
tions during the five years from 1881 to 1886, inclusive. 
Of these the following list of twelve protected and twelve 
unprotected occupations are given : * 

PROTECTED OCCUPATIONS. 





Weekly Wages. 




1880. 


1886. 


Per cent 
decrease. 


Brushmakers 


$12 00 

14 75 
12 02 
18 86 
41 10 
16 43 

15 00 

12 00 

13 20 
12 30 
12 90 
25 00 


$10 80 

11 75 

8 02 

12 14 
36 50 
14 41 
12 00 

10 05 
12 00 

9 90 

11 25 
18 75 


5 


Cloak-factory workers 


20 


Coal-miners 


33 


Confectioners 


35 


Iron and steel workers 


11 


Iron-molders 


12 


Organ-builders « 


20 


Paper-mill operatives 


16 


Salt laborers 


9 


Shoemakers 


19 


Tinners 


12 


Zinc factory men 


25 







* The average rate of wages of watch-factory workers at Elgin, as reported, 
was $12.00 a week in 1882 and only $9.00 in 1886. 

Similar workers employed in the watch-factory at Rockford received $16,00 
per week in wages in 1882 and but $12.00 in 1886. 

The tariff on watches is twenty-five per cent* 



102 



THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 



UNPROTECTED OCCUPATIONS. 



Bricklayers and Stonemasons 

Electrotypers 

Hod-carriers 

Slate-roofers 

tress-feeders 

Stair-builders 

Steam-fitter helpers 

Stone-block pavers 

Stone-cutters 

Street-railway employes .... 

Wooden-block pavers 

Wood-turners 



Weekly Wages. 



1880. 



$19 05 

13 50 
9 00 

14 25 
7 00 

13 50 
9 00 
18 00 
18 00 
10 25 
18 00 
12 00 



1886. 



$20 10 
19 15 

11 50 
15 75 

8 50 
15 75 

12 00 
24 00 
21 60 

13 01 
23 50 

14 25 



Per cent 
increase. 



14 
44 

27 
10 
21 
17 
33 
33 
20 
27 
30 
19 



Thus it appears that the wages in the twelve pro- 
tected industries suffered a decrease of eighteen per 
cent on an average during those five years, while the 
wages in the twelve unprotected industries received an 
average increase of twenty-one per cent. And again, 
Mr. Arrott, of Philadelphia, who was selected to collect 
statistics for the United States census of 1880, says : 
"While wages earned in protected industries in 1870 
was, per hand employed, $446, for the year 1880 it was 
but $313.75, or a decrease of about twenty-nine per cent." 

And again: Mr. Wright, in his annual report of 1883, 
states that in 1875, the percentage of wages paid to the 
value of production in over two thousand establishments 
was 24.68, and that in 1880 it was only 20.23, a decrease 
of one-sixth in five years. ^~~~~^~~ 

Now, it must be remembered that during all this time 
the high protective tariff of 1867, with very slight modi- 
fication, was in operation, and that every attempt at its 
reduction was met by the manufacturers with the claim 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 103 

"that such a reduction would be ruinous to American 
labor." Is it not plain that the benefits of protection, if 
there are any, have not gone to labor, which, with the aid 
of organization even, has not succeeded in maintaining the 
former standard of wages, but that the benefits must 
have gone to the manufacturer ? 

Let us see what men of experience in the business 
have to say about this matter : 

Mr. Carroll D. Wright, present Chief of the United 
States Labor Statistics Bureau, testified before the 
United States Senate Committee in relation to wages 
and its proportionate share in the profits as follows : 

" I should like to know your ideas in regard to the 
equitable distribution of the joint product of capital and 
labor as it exists at the present time ?" 

" Take $100 worth of product at the price the man- 
ufacturer sells it at his warehouse ; 61.32 is raw material, 
20.33 is labor and 12.88 is interest and expense, leaving 
5.47 as net profit to capital." 

" But 1 ask what rate would that be on the invest- 
ment?" 

"Well, according to my report (1883), it would be 
$34,000,000 in round numbers, on $303,000,000 capital 
invested, which would be about ten per cent on the cap- 
ital invested but not on the product." 

" I understand you to say that the sum remaining 
to be distributed upon the capital invested in the State of 
Massachusetts, after paying interest on the capital, is ten 
per cent more?" 

" Ten per cent more on the capital." 

Senator Pugh. — "I wanted to catch that statement 
as to the value of the product of a single mechanic ? " 

" The average to each employe was $1,792." 



J 



104 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 



Senator Pugh. — " That is the value of the product of 
the labor of the mechanic ? " 

"That is what each mechanic, man, woman and 
child, produces. Now, to each man, woman and child 
employed in a mechanical industry the employer gets $98 
net profit ; that is giving him six per cent on his cap- 
ital and five per cent on his product, etc. Each employe 
gets $364. That brings $98 to the employer as net profit 
on the product of each employe. It is the product of 
$364 yearly wages paid to each employe that produces 
that $1,792. The balance is raw material and expense." 

"Suppose there were but one employer in Massa- 
chusetts, and the present number of employes, how much 
would that employer get ? " 

"He would get a net profit of $34,505,367." 

" What would the laborers receive ? " 

"They would receive $128,315,362, divided among 
352,255 of them, or $364 each." 

" How much capital would one employer have in busi- 
ness then ? " 

"He would have $303,806,185." 

"What he has left after paying all expenses is 
$34,505,367?" 

" Yes ; after all his expenses of labor, raw mate- 
rial, etc." 

" That is to say that would be the profit after the 
payment of interest on his capital invested and all insur- 
ance and out-go of every description, and keeping up his 
plant, repairs and all that ? " 

"Yes." 



On page 653 of the United States Senate Committee's 
report, we find the following testimony of Mr. Howard, of 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 105 

Fall Eiver — a former member of the State Legislature 
and Secretary of the Spinners' Association — in reference 
to the share of labor in the manufactured product : 

Senator Puoh. — " You are a man of intelligence 
and your knowledge, being founded on personal observa- 
tion and experience, is, therefore, yery valuable. I under- 
stand you to state from your personal observation that 
the manufacturing classes in the New England States are 
overworked ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

" I want to get your knowledge or your views as to 
the value which the labor of the operative imparts to the 
articles that are manufactured in the cotton-mills at Fall 
Eiver where you work. How much of the value does 
the labor of the operative impart to the cotton fabrics 
made there ? " 

" I think it is twenty or twenty-two per cent, but 
I am not certain." 

"What is your knowledge and information as to 
the share that the laborer gets of the product, when a 
division is made between him and the manufacturer? 
What is your idea, also, as to whether that share is equit- 
able, just and right, whether it is such a share of the prod- 
uct as the laborer should have in proportion to the 
amount of work that he does, and the amount of value 
that his labor imparts to the product ? " 

" There is a wide difference between towns and 
cities. For instance, here are the Pacific mills in Law- 
rence. Last year they reduced the wages of their help to 
about twenty-five per cent, and we could prove that, for 
nineteen years preceding, the corporation* had declared 
dividends, averaging twenty and a half per cent. We 
could find evidence of that in our State records," 



106 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

"Are you telling us now what the capitalists — the 
manufacturers — got in that case?" 

" Yes, sir ; that is the kind of dividends they get in 
good times, and then, when the first cloud of adversity 
comes, they never think of the large dividends they have 
been making for years, but they look around and say, 
' The market is falling, and we must keep up these divi- 
dends in some way ! ' and then they try to do it by cutting 
down the wages of their workmen." 

"That is, they are not willing to lose any portion 
of these twenty-per-cent dividends when revulsions come 
in trade and panics take place — they are not willing to 
lose anything themselves, but they make labor bear the 
loss?" 

"That is the fact. And the Pacific mills that I 
have spoken of have not only made that dividend, but 
their capital stock has been increased from $2,500,000 to 
$5,000,000." 

"What about its being a fact, publicly known to 
the whole country, that protection through the imposition 
of tariff laws is claimed by members of Congress for the 
benefit of American labor ? Is not the tariff adjusted or 
said to be adjusted, so as to afford protection to the 
American laborer, by enabling the manufacturer to pay 
him the highest wages for his work ? Is not that the gen- 
eral ground on which it is claimed that there should be 
protection ? " 

" That is the ground upon which it is claimed, but 
that is not the prevalent opinion among the working- 
people." 

"Then while this protective law is claimed to be 
and is passed in order that it may be a benefit to the 
operatives in our manufactories, I want to know how 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 107 

much benefit they actually get from the increased prices 
which the protective tariff gives to the product. "What 
share do the operatives receive when the product is sold 
and the proceeds are divided between them and capital 2 " 

"The benefit? Looking at the wages here, com- 
pared with the wages in England, I cannot see any 
benefit." 

" That is, the manufacturers take the whole benefit ; 
is that it ? " 

"Yes. They will go over to Canada and bring 
over hordes of French people here to work in our mills at 
fifty or seventy-five cents a day." 

"Are not the operatives in New England intelligent 
enough to know that this protection that was intended 
for them in the passage of this tariff law does not reach 
them, and is not that one reason of their discontent ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

"Do not operatives there understand that they do 
not get the benefit of the protective laws which have been 
passed by Congress for their benefit? " 

" Nine-tenths of the intelligent operatives think so." 

Mr. Edward King, a type-founder and a prominent 
representative of the Central Labor Union, testified before 
the same committee as follows : 

" You say the protection we have had has not been 
just. In what has it been unjust?" 

"It has been unjust in not protecting the working- 
man in his struggles with capital. I might refer, as an 
instance, to a statement made by Mr. Powderly, who repre- 
sents a large labor organization. He was invited to ad- 
dress a large public meeting in the city of New York, 
which was supposed to be held under the auspices of the 
working-men of New York in aid of the protective policy. 



108 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

Mr. Powderly, to my own certain knowledge, excited a 
great deal of comment among the working-men, who owed 
allegiance to him as an officer of this organization, by the 
very fact of his taking any action on that question in 
association with certain capitalists, and in the supposed 
interest of a political party. The speech that he made on 
that occasion was freely commented on by the working- 
men, and the general opinion I found to be that while 
he advocated protection he still maintained that it was 
necessary for the working-men to be organized and to fight 
for their share of the profits. That proposition meant that, 
living on wages which barely supports him, having w r ork 
during only a part of the year, and being almost incapable 
of supporting a good organization, the working-man is still 
to keep up this struggle for protection, because it is neces- 
sary to have this 'protection' in the interest of both 
working-man and master; and that when protection is 
secured, then the working-man has got to turn around 
and fight his master or employer in order to get his 
share. So, as I have said, the general opinion of the 
working-men on that occasion seemed to be that it was 
a kind of work of supererogation on the part of the work- 
ing-man to take any hand in defending the tariff, when it 
was acknowledged that they themselves would still have to 
keep up this fight with their employers for their share of 
the profits, and to keep it up also a great deal more bit- 
terly than was found necessary in England under free 
trade." 

Question by Senator Pugh : " I understood you to 
make the statement that it was a mistake to call the 
wage-receiving class producers ; that they were really 
customers. Now they are both, are they not?" 

"Exactly so," 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 109 

" Is it not a fact that in the cost of some products 
eighty or ninety per cent of the whole is labor?" 

" Yes, sir." 

" Does the imposition of a tariff increase the price 
of the products of the wage-receiving class ? " 

" To a very large extent." 

"To a very large extent the tariff increases the 
price that is paid for the products consumed by the wage- 
receiving class and by others; now, who gets the in- 
creased price that is thus put upon these products by 
the tariff ? Is it the laborer or is it the manufacturer ? " 

"Well, they started a club in New York called 
' The Somebody Club,' which ran for a year. It was 
based upon the idea of finding out who it was that got 
that surplus, w^ho was ' Somebody ' that got it, but I believe 
the club dispersed without discovering who he was." 

" Does the laborer believe that he gets any part of 
that increased price ? " 

" No, sir ; there is only one thing about it that the 
laborer is sure of, and that is that he does not get it." 

" If he got it don't you suppose he would know it ? " 

"Well, I don't know." 

"Do you think he could make any mistake about 
his getting it % " 

"Well, he might, but he hasn't had a chance yet. 
When I emphasize the fact that the laborer is a consumer 
and when I say, in answer to your question, that the 
commodities w^hich labor produces are raised in price, 
the relation of that last statement to my former state- 
ment is that the working-man now places emphasis upon 
the fact that he is a consumer, that this is the great point 
and as a consumer he intends to regard himself." 

"As a public fact how is it ; where does the burden of 



110 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

taxation fall? It falls upon the consumer, does it not?** 

" Yes, ultimately, but still more ultimately it comes 
out of the producers." 

" Is it not a fact that the labor of a country bears 
more of the burden of taxation than is borne by the 
non-laboring class ? " 

"Of course, ultimately. When I say ultimately, I 
mean very ultimately." 

" If a tariff is imposed on these products to increase 
the price is it not imposed for the purpose of enabling the 
manufacturer to pay his operatives higher wages ? Is not 
that the reason assigned why the rate of duty is put so 
high? Is it not claimed that the duty ought to be high 
so as to enable the manufacturer to give the benefit of the 
increased prices so obtained to his employes ? " 

" Yes, that is the claim." 

" Then if the manufacturer gets protection from the 
government on that claim, is it not right and proper that 
the people, for w T hom the protection is claimed, should get 
the benefit of it?" 

" I should think so." 

" Now, do they get it ? " 

" They do not think so." 

But the most irrefutable testimony in proof that it is 
not the worker but the manufacturer who is pocketing 
the profits secured by protection, is furnished by the well- 
known advocate of protection, Mr. John Jarrett, the 
ex-president of the Amalgamated Iron and Steel Workers 
of the United States, who, in 1886, came to Illinois per- 
sonally to assist in defeating Wm. R. Morrison's re-elec- 
tion to Congress. 

Questioned by the United States Senate Committee 
on Education and Labor as to whether the wages of the 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. Ill 

iron-workers increased with the advance in prices in iron ? 
Mr. Jarrett says : 

" The wages of labor can only be maintained at a liv- 
ing standard by the working-men belonging to labor organi- 
zations. 

I could name to you mills which during the boom of 
1878 did not advance wages, although iron advanced 
from two and one-half to four per cent, and over four 
cents a pound. When iron sold at four cents in the 
market they did not advance wages one cent." 

" So the manufacturers took all the benefit of the 
advance ? " 

"They took it allP 

There can be no misunderstanding about the state- 
ment of these intelligent working-men. No professor of 
political economy could state the case clearer nor more 
forcibly. These are not abstract reasonings of free-trade 
theorists ; they are a simple, candid statements of facts, 
volunteered by men who work in so-called protected 
industries. 

Now, what further light is necessary for the laboring 
man to see that he is being outrageously deceived in this 
matter of protection ? 

Is not the sum and substancer of these statements a 
candid acknowledgment that protection does not protect 
the working-man ; that it has not the effect of increasing 
his wages, but that it is advocated for the sole purpose of 
increasing the manufacturer's profits? 

If these statements are not sufficient, the following 
additional evidence that the most outrageous acts of in- 
timidation are resorted to in manufacturing districts, to 
crush out these annoying labor organizations may, per- 
haps, open the eyes of the blindest. 



112 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

As this question of intimidation is a part of the pro- 
tective system a portion of the evidence taken by the 
Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, and embodied 
in the report of the United States Senate Committee, 
is here reproduced. One of the features of this inquisi- 
torial method is what is called the u black list, 59 which is 
in the possession of the manufacturers' association. 

" This list," says the committee report, " contains the 
names of persons that it will not be safe to hire, owing to 
some participation in a strike or to membership in some 
trade organization." 

The existence of that list was denied by some manu- 
facturers before the Senate Committee but acknowledged 
to by others, one of them frankly stating, that "if we 
wanted to black-list a ma*n we could undoubtedly do so. 
For our own protection we started a secret service, 
as it gave us the names and occupations of the most 
prominent agitators." 

Here we have a set of manufacturers unblushingly 
admitting that in order to terrorize their working-men into 
submission to all of their exactions they have organized 
all through the State of Massachusetts an ignoble system 
of espionage. 

The report says : 

" Nearly all of the Fall River operatives, visited by 
the agent of the State, seemed to fear the possibility of 
the manufacturers discovering that they had given any 
information. One of them said, and his statement will 
cover what was said by several others : ' You will find 
that very few of the operatives will say anything unless 
you can assure them that their names will never be 
known. If it were known that I was giving you any 
information I should be discharged at once ; so you see I 



LABOB Iff PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 113 

am reposing considerable confidence in you. My bread 
is at stake, and were I asked whether I had given you 
any information I should deny it from the beginning.' " 

" Under these circumstances," continues the report, " it 
was necessary to proceed with caution, but in the major- 
ity of cases the mere promise that no name would be 
mentioned was sufficient to gain the desired information. " 

All agreed that the " black list " was an abominable 
institution, one that embodied all that was pernicious in the 
system of spying. The universal statement was that the 
spinners as a body were the most eagerly punished by the 
black-listing, it being asserted that thirty members of the 
Spinners' Union were on the black list, and could not ob- 
tain work in any mill in the city. One operative stated 
that there were several causes that led to dissatisfaction 
and striking in Fall River, one of the most pronounced 
being the " black list." 

Of all the testimony given before the United States 
Senate Committee in reference to the condition of work- 
ing-men in protected industries, of the nature and object 
of their organizations, and of the methods resorted to by 
the protected bosses to break up these unions, the follow- 
ing by a simple working-man is the most interesting, and 
for that reason we reprint it verbatim : 

Boston, Mass., October 19, 1883. Charles J. Chance, 
Jr., examined by the chairman : 

" Where do you live ? " 

"In Somerville, Mass." 

"What is your business?" 

" I am a currier ; have worked some at tanning, but 
am a journeyman currier." 

" You have learned that trade, have you ? " 



114 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

" Yes ; I served my time at it and learned the trade 
thoroughly." 

"And you work at it now for a living ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

"Are you connected with any labor union ? w 

"Yes, sir." 

"What is it?" 

"The' Tanners' Union of Massachusetts." 

"How many members are there in that organiza- 
tion?" 

"About twenty-three hundred ; over two thousand 
I would say." 

"About how many curriers are there in the coun- 
try, do you think ?" 

" I suppose about twenty thousand tanners and cur- 
riers." 

"Do you suppose one-half of the tanners and cur- 
riers of the country are included in organizations ? " 

" No, sir ; not yet, through fear ; about one-half of 
them are afraid to join any organization." 

"Are nearly all of them that live in Massachusetts 
included in the Massachusetts organization ? " 

"No, sir." 

"But there are about twenty-three hundred, yoa 
say?" 

"About two thousand ; it is something over two 
thousand, but say two thousand for certain." 

"You have something to say to the committee; you 
may proceed to state it now ? " 

"Before I commence on anything for the committee 
I would state that I am in a position now; but having 
taken an active part in forming the curriers' union, I 
have been either black-listed or something of that sort, so 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 115 

that it was almost impossible for me to obtain work until 
these last two weeks, when I managed to get into a place 
where they had either never heard my name or not 
known so much about the union matter." 

" Let us know more particularly about your connec- 
tion with the union and in what way it has resulted in 
your failure to get work. When did you commence these 
efforts and what did you do by way of organization ? Where 
were you when you began ? " 

" Here in Boston." 

"Well, what did you do?" 

"I started in speaking for the men to join the 
organization." 

" Speaking to them in public meetings ? " 

"Yes, some of them." 

"And calling meetings yourself, with others, I sup- 
pose ? " 

" Yes, we called meetings." 

"Where did you call your first meeting?" 

" The first one that I called myself was in Charles- 
town." 

"How many were present?" 

" There were present twenty-eight." 

"All of your trade?" 

"All of my trade ; yes." 

" What did you do — what did you say to them ? " 

" I didn't say a great deal. I gave them the rules 
of organization of the union, as it was found before I 
got into it, and encouraged them to form a branch of the 
organization in Charlestown, which they did." 

" What reason did you give them for forming such 
an organization ? " 

"The reason we gave was that we might get the 



116 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

men all together ; that they would come to a fair under- 
standing between themselves, and in time regulate the 
price of wages more evenly than at present.'" 

"How could you do that ?" 

"We could do it, and have done it since the organi- 
zation has been started; done it in several places by a 
unanimous movement of the men, not in any hard man- 
ner, as by strikes or anything of that kind; there has 
been no severity used by any of us ; it was done in a legal 
manner, by the men waiting on the firms and coming to 
an understanding with them before there was any chance 
of a strike." 

"Have there been any strikes? " 

"There was one strike in Charlestown shortly after 
the organization was formed. The proprietors of the 
place, Hubbard, Buzzell & Blake, made an attempt at 
reduction of wages and a demand for more work. The 
men refused to agree to it, and appointed a committee to 
wait upon them." 

" They wanted the men to take less pay and do more 
work % " 

" Yes ; so the committee waited on the firm, and they 
gave them a very independent, ' sassy ' answer ; the con- 
sequence was that some of the men were discharged, and 
the rest, when they saw how matters stood, left." 

" How many men were there ? " 

"Eighty men went out at that time." 

"You protested against either change — more work 
or less pay ? " 

"Certainly. We didn't want to have any change, or 
to have the union brought in as the cause of it. We 
wanted to have the union first fairly started, and then to 
make any fair arrangements with them ; but they under- 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 117 

took to break up the union on the start ; that was 
their idea, and after they got beaten on that, they gave in 
to the strike, but since then they have discharged the 
eight men that waited on them as a committee." 

" How long ago was that ? " 

" That was three months ago." 

" Were you on the committee ? " 

" I was. They have since discharged, as I say, those 
eight men that waited on them as a committee, and the 
members of the firm that I have spoken of promised 
faithfully that after things had been settled there would 
be no hard feelings between our men and them." 

"You think, then, that the organization prevented 
the reduction of pay and the increase of work ? " 

"Yes, sir; instead of getting the reduction they 
received a half-dollar advance, and did less work. The 
men working in these currier shops receive small wages, 
as a general thing, all through." 

"What is the pay?" 

"The average pay of a currier would be 'about six 
dollars per week." 

"A dollar a day ? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" Is that the pay of a first-class workman ? " 

" That is an average of the men. 

"Are you an ' agitator ' ? " 

"No, sir; but I have been encouraging unionism as 
much as possible." 

The Chairman: "We have heard something about 
'agitators.' You do not look like a very dangerous man 
in the community." 

The Witness : " No, sir ; I don't think I am." 

The Chairman: "You seem to be a peaceable man, 



118 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

who would mind his business and do his work ; but you 
have delivered some addresses. Do you think that was 
right?" 

The "Witness : " Yes, sir ; I do. Kesistance to oppres- 
sion is an American right." 

"You think it was right to call that meeting of 
twenty-eight men over in Charlestown and try to organize 
that society? Do you think that was consistent w r ith 
your duty as an American citizen ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

" You do not feel condemned for it at all ? " 

" I do not ; no, sir. I think, where you see your 
trade is getting ruined and getting underneath, it is about 
time something should be done ; and if one man don't do 
it, somebody will have to take hold and do it." 

"What business have you to meddle with your 
trade ? " 

"Well, I don't know that I have any business to 
meddle with it any more than the bosses have to meddle 
with us. When they come to cut us down and demand 
of us work that we will not or cannot do, it is time some- 
body did something." 

" Do you really think so ? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" You have got that idea in regard to your relation 
to society and your right as a man?" 

" Yes, sir." 

"And you still insist that you had a right to do it, 
and are not to be condemned for doing it ? Of what con- 
sequence is your trade to you ? " 

"Of what consequence? I have to make a living 
by it." 

" Do you think you have a right to make a living ? " 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 119 

"Well, according to the idea of some men a work- 
ing-man has no right to make a living." 

" Then you were wrong in making that speech over 
in Charlestown, were you not?" 

" No, sir." 

"Is there any other point that you have on your 
mind which you wish to state ? " 

" Out here in Eoxbury there is a shop running 
some eighty men, and the proprietor of that concern has 
threatened to break up the union, or the 'clique,' as he 
calls it, and he has commenced already to discharge men 
that belong to the union." 

"That is simply because they do belong to the 
union?" 

"Yes." 

"Why do they want to break up the union? What 
reasons do they give ? " 

" That the men will be wanting to get more pay 
when they become organized." 

"How do they know that they give that as a 
reason ? " 

" They have told the men that." 

" They have themselves told the men that ? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" Do they claim that they are unable to give more 
pay?" 

" No. There are men that would be willing to come 
here and testify, but, like myself, they know that as soon 
as they get here they are done for. I have spoken to several 
of them, but they are all afraid. They are union men, 
but are afraid to come out in public and give any voice 
to their wrongs. It is a general feeling that all working- 
men have, and I believe that I will be the only tanner 



120 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

and currier that you will find to come before you. There 
may be one or two more that would come if they could 
possibly get together, but as a general thing they have 
all got this fear in them. " 

John Morrison, machinist in New York city, testified 
before the United States Senate Committee as follows : 

" Where do you work ? " 

"I would rather not have it in print. Perhaps I 
would have to go Monday morning if I did. "We are so 
situated in the machinist's trade that we daren't let them 
know much about us. If they know that we open our 
mouths on the labor question and try to form organiza- 
tions we are quietly told that ' business is slack,' and we 
have to go." 

"Do you know of anybody being discharged for 
making speeches on the labor question % " 

" Yes ; I do know of several members of the organ- 
ization that I belong to who were discharged because it was 
discovered they were members of the organization." 

" Do you say those men were members of the same 
organization that you belonged to ? " 

"Yes, sir; but not working in the same place 
where I work. And, in fact, many of my trade have 
been on the ' black list ' and have had to leave town to 
find work." 

The well-known protectionist, John Jarrett, also testi- 
fied in reference to the intimidation of the working-men in 
the Pennsylvania rolling-mills : 

" We are unable to organize the men who are work- 
ing in these mills, from the fact that they are completely 
demoralized and are afraid that they will be connected 
with our organization, knowing that they will be dis- 
charged if they are. I can give you instances that took 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 121 

place under my own observation not two years ago. I 
went into one of these rolling-mills to speak with a per- 
son there. It was the Pennsylvania Steel Works, at 
Steelton, near Harrisburg. I spoke to a person there in 
the mill about organization. Of course, if they knew 
who I was, it is not very likely that they would have 
allowed me in, but I was inside the mill and was talking 
with this man about organization, and one thing and 
another, and the very next day that man was discharged 
without being told anything about the reason, and, of 
course, he naturally drew the conclusion that he was dis- 
charged because he happened to be talking with me. Of 
course, I could not subject any of the other men in that 
mill to that risk; so, you can see that when w r orking- 
men are in this condition we have reached a very demor- 
alized state of affairs." 

The testimony of Robert Howard — whose testimony 
"on the share of labor in the profits of manufacture" has 
been given already — in reference to the reported intimi- 
dation of the operatives of cotton and woolen-mills in 
Massachusetts, is as follows : 

" Now there is one remarkable thing in Massachusetts 
and that is that if ever a bill is brought before our legis- 
lature for the redress of some grievance which may 
exist, or if the working-men come to the legislature ask- 
ing for some law which may be beneficial to their inter- 
ests as working-men, such a law as that they shall be paid 
weekly, or a law providing for boards of arbitration, or a 
law to make the ten-hour rule more stringent — if there 
is a bill of any of these kinds brought before our legisla- 
ture, you will always see the corporation detectives there, 
particularly from Lowell and from Lawrence. Lowell 
wishes itself to be looked upon as the working-man's par- 



122 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

adise of Massachusetts, but it is the worst place in Mass- 
achusetts and pays the lowest prices to working-men. 
The Lowell manufacturers always have a ring of men 
down at the State-house. It was that Merrimac corpora- 
tion that got us reduced ten per cent in 1880. When the 
Board of Manufacturers met, the others said to us, ' You 
make that Merrimac Company pay the same as we are 
paying ; they can undersell us as things are.' There are 
men there running fifteen hundred spindles for about $9.50 
a week, while in the other New England mills they can get 
$12 a week. They have a man named Moses Sargent who is 
there at the State-house every week, and when I was on 
the Legislative Committee I used to see him watching 
every man that came in, so that a Lowell man that had 
to earn his bread in the mills dare not put his head into 
the committee room. The same is true in Lawrence. 
They had a detective named Filbrook always watching 
to see if any Lawrence men came before the committee 
to give testimony. Then, after the meetings were over, 
they would say, ' There are those Fall Eiver fellows ; they 
are a turbulent set.' It is not that we in Fall River are 
turbulent ; it is because we had manhood enough and 
nerve enough to go and ask and demand what was our 
right, that they say that about us. There are no Fall 
River detectives at the State-house. I went to a meet- 
ing of the mule-spinners at Lawrence some six or seven 
weeks ago. When the time came that was appointed for 
the meeting, there across the road stood Filbrook, the 
corporation detective, and Russell, the overseer, watching 
every man that came in. There was one man at that 
meeting who was looking out of the window at them and 
he said, ' I never belonged to a union in my life, Howard, 
but nothing does so much as the presence of these men 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 123 

there to convince me that there must be some good for 
the working-men in unions, for unless there was they 
would not stand there spying us as we came in. 5 
That is the condition of affairs. These manufacturers 
have their detectives employed permanently. I have 
been told that Filbrook gets a salary of $6,000 a year 
from the Pacific mills alone." 

Thus is the word protection, which in its true signifi- 
cation conveys the idea that the weak, the humble and 
helpless are being shielded from oppression and injury, 
prostituted for the base purpose of oppressing and injur- 
ing a class of our people whose fate it is to labor and to 
suffer. 

The shallowness of the pretense, that the protective 
system is a necessity to maintain a respectable standard 
of wages for the American working-men, is further 
exposed in the $2 a thousand tariff on lumber. 

In order to bring this matter in its true light before 
the reader, it will be necessary to consider the claims 
made by the owners of pine lands in support of the pro- 
tective system. This can best be done by producing the 
testimony before the Tariff Commission of the representa- 
tive of a large association of lumbermen, and of indi- 
vidual business men engaged in the manufacture and 
trade of lumber. 

At the meeting of the commission in Chicago, Septem- 
ber 7, 1882, Mr. J. A. Whittier, President of the Saginaw 
(Mich.) Board of Trade, made a statement of which the 
following is a synopsis : The total product of Michigan 
in 1881 was four billion feet of pine lumber. Capital 
invested in its manufacture, $40,000,000. Twenty-one 
thousand men were engaged in saw-mills at wages aver- 
aging $2 per day. Thirty -five thousand men were engaged 



124 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

in logging at $1 .75 per day. The mill men are employed 
two hundred days, the logging men 150 days during the 
year. Total estimate of yearly wages paid, $17,585,500. 

In order to impress the Tariff Commission, and the 
public through its report, with the necessity of laying a 
tax of $2 a thousand upon the millions of lumber con- 
sumers, this wealthy defender of the American wage- 
earner thus pathetically describes the magnitude of the 
interests involved : " If we take in the whole lumber 
industry of the United States we shall find nine thousand 
men working in mills, and 135,000 in forests, with yearly 
wages of $80,000,000, and a total product of $230,- 
000,000. 

The standing pine tree in the forest, he says, is the 
raw material, and for that " a round sum is paid, 5 ' and 
the conversion of that raw material into lumber is done 
by the steady stroke of the ax and solid days' work by 
this army of men. 

" The estimated cost of producing lumber," this gen- 
tleman continues, "is $13.50 per thousand feet; the aver- 
age price received is $14.57, leaving $1.07 profit." In 
this estimate of cost the item of stumpage, that is, the 
privilege of cutting the timber from the owner's land, or 
the value put upon it by the manufacturer owning the 
pine land himself, is put down at the nice "little sum" 
of $4.50 a thousand feet. 

Mr. Whittier informs the commission that $80,000,000 
are paid yearly in wages to the operatives in the lumber 
business of the United States, and that the value of the 
product is $230,000,000; but he fails to tell the commis- 
sion that in the $80,000,000 wages paid, the amount of 
the $2 a thousand tax or $46,000,000 collected from the 
consumers is included, and that consequently all the 



LABOB IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 125 

money paid in wages by the operators out of their capital 
or profit on the product is $34,000,000. By deducting 
this amount from the value of the total product, we have 
$196,000,000, which goes for stumpage, machinery, repairs, 
interest on capital and profit to the lumber bosses. 

" There are millions in protection to American labor," 
they say, and it is on that account that the lumber lords 
of the Northwest are "laboring" so hard to maintain it. 

The item of " stumpage," an altogether fictitious value, 
is the worm in the meal-tub. It is, in railroad terms, the 
"watered stock" of the lumber operators, through which 
they have been amassing such immense fortunes. 

As stated by Mr. Thaddeus Dean, a prominent Chicago 
lumber merchant, and a thoroughly informed gentleman, 
before the same Tariff Commission: "The power of this 
association is getting to be a little dangerous, as it 
appears to me, and as it would appear by the rapid 
advance in stumpage. I remember some fifteen years 
ago the stumpage w T as generally estimated at fifty cents 
a thousand. His land cost him $1.25 to $2.50 an acre. 
He has a good profit at fifty cents. But if the stumpage 
of the Northwest is gradually gathered into a few hands, 
they have the power to form combinations that have the 
effect to bull up the price of lumber. The operations of 
these manufacturers, who all appear to run in one groove, 
have been advancing the price of lumber the last two or 
three years out of proportion to former years. 

I took occasion last evening to gather from my books 
some statistics of the cost of lumber for the last ten or 
fifteen years, and I have it accurately extended. I have 
been a lumber buyer in this market, and have probably 
bought, during that time, not less than 10,000,000 feet of 
lumber, and from that to 25,000,000. There are other 



126 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

dealers here who are similarly situated. You will under- 
stand that Chicago does a business exceeding 2,000,000,- 
000 per year, making it by far the largest market on the 
globe for the sale of lumber, and over one-half of the 
gentlemen doing business here do not own a single acre 
of stumpage. They buy from the lumber operators and 
stump owners. I notice that for the year prior to the 
fire, up to October 9, 1871, lumber cost me (and my 
neighbors as well, for we buy side by side) $14.46 per 
thousand feet. I notice in the estimate of the Saginaw 
gentlemen that they figure the absolute cost of lumber 
at $13.50 to the manufacturer. As the transportation 
from Saginaw here is sometimes $2 or $3 per thousand (I 
have paid as high as $4), you will see that they have been 
doing business at a tremendous loss, and that is the rea- 
son they are so wealthy now, I presume ! 

The great fire in Chicago necessarily had an effect 
upon the value of lumber. It had the more effect be- 
cause lumber was not one of the items upon which a re- 
bate was allowed. You will remember that when the 
world was weeping at Chicago's impoverished condition 
Congress passed a law giving the rebuilders of the city a 
rebate upon glass, iron and everything else in the way of 
construction material. The lumber interest, however, 
would not submit to a rebate, and this was the effect : 
Lumber for 1872, following the fire, cost the people 
$16.80 per thousand feet. That was the average cost the 
whole year. So it will be seen that the lumber manufact- 
urers and the stump owners were benefited to the extent of 
about $2.50 a thousand in consequence of the Chicago 
fire. If the duty had been off, or the rebate had been 
allowed, the lumber dealers would only have been ben- 
efited to the extent of fifty cents ; but, as it was, they 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 127 

made a great deal of money out of the Chicago fire. 

For the year 1873, two years after the fire, the aver- 
age cost of lumber was $12.72, a falling off, you see, of 
over $4 a thousand. Things were beginning to regulate 
themselves. 

In 1875 it was $11.68, a falling off of another dollar 
a thousand. 

Now we strike the proper medium of trade, I pre- 
sume, without the disturbing element of the Chicago 
fire. In 1876 it was $9.67, Saginaw losing a tremendous 
sight of money, you see. I don't know how they can 
exist at all ! 

In 1877 it was $9.73. * 

In 1878 it was $9.66. 

These figures I can verify by oath to any extent. 
But now, gentlemen, this is what I wanted to call your 
attention to especially. In 1880 a little boom started, 
and the stumpage being reduced to a small amount could 
be easily handled, and an advance was made to $11.63 on 
the average. 

In 1881 it was still growing, and reached $13.92. 

In 1882 my lumber cost me between $14 and $15 a 
thousand. 

That is the direction it has taken. It is in consequence 
of the manipulation of the stumpage. I can see no 
earthly reason why the American interest should have 
any protection. Only in one thing, from my standpoint, 
do I see that it applies. I believe that we can produce 
corn, pork and beans in Illinois, and those are the things 
that enter into the lumber business. The labor question 
I leave outside entirely, for I have no faith in it at all. I 
do not see why a Canadian should work for $10 a month 
when he could pass over an imaginary line into the 



128 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

United States and get $20 a month. I believe that the 
laborer upon the Canadian side is paid equal to our laborer 
here, and I see no sense in anything else, and I object 
to the proposition that he is not paid so well, unless it 
may be that provisions would cost less in Canada than 
they do here ; and, as I have before remarked, pork, corn 
and beans is the power that runs the lumber business. 
Now, I believe that the cost of pork, corn and beans in 
the States of Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin cannot far 
exceed the cost of the same article in Canada. They 
may be able to raise beans up there a little cheaper ; I 
don't know how that is. But against that there exists 
this consideration : That the Canadian has to pay any- 
where from $1 up, or more for taking his lumber to market 
than the American does, and the freight, as I under- 
stand, from Georgian Bay to Buffalo at the present time 
is about $3 a thousand, while the freight from Saginaw 
is about $2. There is $1 against them, for Saginaw could 
not get lumber in this direction over these broad prai- 
ries, where so much lumber is used, for less than $2 a 
thousand. There must be a margin at least of $2 a thou- 
sand against them in the delivery of lumber to our sec- 
tion here. 

The manufacturer of lumber in Michigan has other 
advantages incident to his manufacture. He can utilize 
the offal, the worthless product, so to speak, of his logs. 
He utilizes his sawdust and sells his slabs for firewood. 
And I understand there has recently been discovered a 
process by which whisky is made from sawdust, and 
when that ultimatum is reached the manufacturer of lum- 
ber will be solid, indeed. 

Having, then, the advantage of a revenue from his 
offal, and the advantage of from $1 to $3 in the delivery 



LABOR IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 129 

of lumber, I cannot for the life of me see why he should 
be further protected by the advantage of $2 duty. 

Taking for granted the estimate made by the Saginaw 
gentlemen that the expense of the manufacture of lumber 
is $13.50 per thousand (and, of course, I question his fig- 
ures all the way through), you will see that he admits 
that after paying a stumpage tax of $4.50 he still has a 
profit of $1.07, with which he has acknowledged himself 
satisfied. Now let us throw off this $2 duty and give 
him only a stumpage of $2.50. According to late esti- 
mates, which are credited to the manufacturers, there 
stands now upon the peninsula, reckoning from Luding- 
ton east to the Saginaw Valley, an average of 5,000 feet 
of timber on each acre of ground. Giving him a stump- 
age tax of $2.50 would still pay him $12.50 an acre for 
every acre of that ground, even if it were pine barrens. 
Hence, he would receive $2.50 for each thousand of 
stumpage." 

It would thus appear that the ft round sum " of $4.50 
for stumpage, as stated by the president of the Saginaw 
Board of Trade, is simply the " round sum " credited to 
themselves in figuring out the cost of lumber, and is thus 
swelled merely for the purpose of deceiving the public in 
regard to the actual amount of their profits, which, allow- 
ing the liberal sum of $2.50 for stumpage, as stated by 
Mr. Dean, would show the profit on the price of $14.57 
per thousand feet to be $3.57, instead of $1.07, as stated 
by the president of the Saginaw association. 

But since 1881, owing to the rapid increase in the 
price of stumpage, the price of lumber has been steadily 
on the increase, so that on July 26, 1887, the market 
report of the Chicago Times shows the price of lumber by 
the cargo, to be ; 



130 TSE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

Dimension, long, green , $12 00 to $15 00 

short, " , 10 50 

Common boards and strips 13 00 " 14 00 

Medium boards and strips 14 50 ' ' 16 00 

No. 1 boards and strips 16 50 " 20 00 

How about the price of labor ? Has that kept pace 
with the stumpage of the land owners and the price of 
the product ? Let us see. 

Alex. G. Burman, of Manistee, who is at the head of the 
organization of the Knights of Labor in Michigan, recently 
transmitted to the press of that State the resolutions unan- 
imously adopted by District Assembly 83 in favor of the 
abolition of the tariff on lumber, and at the same time pre- 
sented the facts as to the " protection given to the workers 
by the $2 a thousand tariff " in the following paragraphs : 

Average price five years ago : "Wages paid to men 
employed in the logging camps per month and board, 
$30 ; wages paid to men in and about saw-mills per month 
without board, $40 ; custom-mills received from manufact- 
uring, from $3.50 up to $4.50 a thousand feet; pine 
stumpage, from $6 to $7 a thousand feet — the pine almost 
on the river banks. 

At the present time wages in logging camps per 
month, with board, $18 ; wages in and about saw-mills 
per month, without board, $30 ; custom-mills receive to- 
day $1.50 to $2.75 per thousand. Pine cannot be bought 
to-day for less than $10 per thousand, and far off from 
the rivers." 

Ten dollars for stumpage, or $47.50 profit per acre of 
pine land for the lumber kings, and $18, with board per 
month for each of the "army of men, who, by the sturdy 
stroke of the axe, do the solid day's work," in wages. 

And ail this lying about protection to American labor, 
in our lumber interests, is easily swallowed on account of 



LASOft IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 131 

the unfathomable stupidity of a portion of our working- 
men who actually believe that all, or a large portion of the 
$2 import tax ultimately enures to their benefit. 

Don't they see that it is the high-priced "stumpage" of 
the American owner of pine land which is protected 
against the low-priced " stumpage " of Canada, and not 
the cheaper Canadian labor, which, under the " free-trade 
in labor" plan, and without the slightest hindrance, 
crosses the American border in droves to compete with 
the wages of the American lumber worker? However, 
a goodly share of the " unfathomable stupidity" men- 
tioned above, if not downright rascality, is to be placed to 
the credit of those members of Congress who, with the 
above facts and figures before them, by their votes are 
laying a senseless and useless embargo upon Canadian 
lumber. 

But the evil of this lumber tax consists not only in 
swindling the laborer and the consumer ; it is inflicting 
serious injury upon the whole country by the wanton 
destruction of our merchantable timber, which, it has 
been calculated, will be completed before the close of 
this century. When this will have taken place, a clever 
statistician asserts, that the entire marine of the world 
cannot carry enough to supply the demand in the United 
States. 



OTTR PATTPER LABOR. 



OF all the arguments used by protectionists to bolster 
up their ignoble system, that of " European pauper 
labor" is the most deceiving. 

Relying upon the gullibility of the unthinking, it is 
not of the slightest consequence to them that the terms 
" pauper labor," and " pauper wages " are meaningless in 
fact, since paupers do not work and, consequently, do not 
earn any wages, but as a rule are supported at the expense 
of the charitable public. 

It is clear that in using these terms, the impression 
sought to be conveyed is that European laborers are as 
miserably situated, as poorly clad and fed as the paupers 
in the public almshouses, and that the standard of their 
wages is just high enough to keep them and their families 
from starvation. It was found advisable to keep this 
picture of human wretchedness prevailing among the 
poorer classes of the old country constantly before the 
eyes of the American working-men, evidently to serve as 
a reminder that unless they assisted with their votes in 
maintaining the protective system, or if the tariff reformers 
were permitted to lower the taxes on imported goods, they 
would soon share the fate of the " pauper laborers of 
free-trade England." In order to give a semblance of fact 
to their claim, R. P. Porter, who was the proxy of Pig-iron 
Kelly on the Tariff Commission, was selected as a fit rep- 
resentative of the spoliation system and dispatched to 
England, in the guise of a philanthropist, with a view to 

132 



OTJR PAUPER LABOR. 133 

examine into the condition of the working classes in that 
free-trade country. 

Mr. Porter is an Englishman by birth, and, like the 
bird who befouls his own nest, has most faithfully 
performed the mandate of his protectionist task-masters, 
'by sending exaggerated and deceptive reports to Ameri- 
ican newspapers, in which the wretched condition and 
pauperism of the " toilers" of free-trade England are 
pictured with harrowing details. That these reports are 
not written for information, but for the express purpose 
of being used as " scare-crows " for the credulous Ameri- 
can " toiler," is apparent from the fact that Mr. Porter 
studiously avoids making comparisons between the condi- 
tions prevailing before the " free-trade " system had fairly 
been inaugurated in England and after. He does not in- 
form his American readers of the fact that the condition, 
the wages, the mode of living, as well as the morals of 
the laboring class, have improved a hundred per cent 
since England's present fiscal system has been introduced. 
He is silent about the fact that forty years ago, under 
the strictly protective system, the number of able-boaied 
paupers in the United Kingdom, with a population of 
less than 29,000,000, was 934,419, and that in 1883, 
after the long period of practical free trade, and with an 
increased population of over 36,000,000, the number of 
able-bodied paupers had actually decreased to 799,296. 
Again, in speaking of the degradation prevailing among 
the English working classes to-day, as a true renegade, Mr. 
Porter fails to do justice to his native land by avoiding to 
mention the eloquent fact that in 1846, under an exor- 
bitant protective tariff system, the annual convictions in 
the United Kingdom were 41,008, against 15,898 in 1882, 
under the free-trade system, 



134 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

Animated by no other motive than an earnest desire 
to throw light upon this subject of " pauper labor," 
which has so systematically and persistently been used 
for the purpose of deceiving our laboring classes, we deem 
a reproduction of some of the detailed accounts of the 
misery of our protected laborers imperatively necessary. 
Its perusal by those of our workmen who are getting 
along without government aid will enable them to. reach 
their own conclusions as to the truth or falsity of the 
protectionists' claim " that their system has the effect of 
increasing the wages of labor, and of securing the pros- 
perity of the toilers." 

We have selected but a few of these reports, but they 
will suffice to give a general idea of the condition of the 
people whose fate it is to earn a livelihood in our so- 
called protected industries. 

On February 6, 1884, the Cleveland Herald, — good 
protectionist authority, — contained the following : 

For some time past all sorts of stories have been cir- 
culated in reference to the suffering of the miners and their 
families scattered along the Pennsylvania railroad between 
this crty and Allentown. These people have had their 
wages reduced from time to time until they are now only 
getting from sixty to seventy cents per day, or an average 
of about sixty-five cents. These reports have excited con- 
siderable comment, and in order to verify them a Herald 
correspondent visited the mines. 

" After arriving in Alburtus, Pa.," writes the corre- 
spondent, " I procured a sleigh and drove through the 
entire district, covering some thirty miles, and visited 
many homes of the miners, beside some forty-five mines 
in full operation. Alburtus has a population of nearly six 
hundred people and their true condition is probably ex- 






OUR PAUPER LABOR. 135 

pressed in the words of Isaac Bickel, proprietor of the 
American House, who said : 

" i Never in the history of the town has there been so 
much suffering among the poor. The panic of 1873 is no 
comparison. The storekeepers have shut down on the 
men, and are now doing a strictly cash business through- 
out the ore district.' 

" George Schrack, residing in a small log hut near 
Farmington, was called on in the evening. The picture 
presented here was one of extreme pity. The children, four 
in number, were found huddled together about the stove. 
They were thinly clad and three of them were suffering 
with the measles. The floor was carpetless and the room 
presented a dismal appearance. The furniture was old 
and bore evidence of hard usage. The bed-room adjoin- 
ing the kitchen contained two beds, in which the entire 
family slept. Two of the window panes were broken out 
and stuffed with old clothes. Mr. Schrack, who works in 
one of the mines in East Texas, five miles distant, did not 
reach home till 7: 30. Supper had been prepared and con- 
sisted of bread, molasses, mush and coffee. A stiff breeze 
was blowing from the northwest and the cold air fairly 
whistled through the cracks of the old structure. 

" ' Will you kindly give me an insight into your daily 
life, Mr. Schrack?'" 

" ' Well, to tell you the truth, it is a tough one. I get 
up at four o'clock every morning and leave here half an 
hour later in order to reach the works at six o'clock.' " 

" 'What are your duties ? ' " 

" ' I am a loader and with the help of another man we 
load from sixty to seventy cars per day.' " 

" i What are you getting per day ? ' " 

" ' Sixty-two cents.' " 



136 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

" ' How do you manage to live with that amount ? ' " 
" ' Oh, we manage to just hang together. We can't 
afford meat but once a week. Bread and molasses con- 
stitute our chief diet with a few potatoes and corn-meal 
thrown in,' " 

" ' How about your clothing, shoes, etc.? ' " 
" ' The children have no shoes and really I cannot afford 
to buy any for them.' " 

" ' How much did you earn in January ? ' " 
" i $11.38. I made a little over eighteen days.' " 
" ' How much does it cost you to live ? ' " 
" ' My earnings did not quite cover the bills and the 
grocer told me that hereafter none of the men would be 
allowed to exceed their earnings. I have not handled a 
cent since December the 1st.' " 
"< How's that? 5 " 

" ' Why, you see, after the grocer is paid, nothing is 
left.'" 

This is the story of a dozen or more and with the 
exception of one or two cases all tell the same story. 

Benville Eck, employed as foreman in the mines of 
Kaufman & Co., at Alburtus, said : 

" I have been employed in the mines over twenty years 
and get $30 per month. I live four miles from here and 
generally get up about four o'clock in the morning. I am 
a married man and have three children. I don't know 
how the men live, but judging from what I see here, bread 
and molasses are the chief articles of diet." 

Another account, recently written to the ]STew York 
World by a correspondent who is investigating the con- 
dition of the " protected" mine workers in the Pennsyl- 
vania coal region : 

Outside of " Japan" (a name given a miners' settle- 



OUR PAUPER LABOR. 137 

ment) but still in Jeddo, I came to another tumbledown 
collection of shanties. In the front of one was a sad- 
faced Welsh woman of so intelligent a countenance I 
could not forbear to question her. Her husband, she 
said, worked as breaker for eighty cents a day. It was 
the best he could get. I entered the house and was 
struck by its neatness. The woman was superior to her 
circumstances. I asked to see a ticket. She showed mo 
one. It represents the work of a boy of ten, one of four- 
teen and a man. 

EARNINGS. 

By boy of ten, 253 hours $17 45 

By boy of fourteen, 236 hours 18 56 

By man, 249 hours 29 38 

Total gross earnings $65 40 

CHARGES. 

To balance (debt) $61 40 

To team 75 

To rent of three rooms 2 50 

To coal 1 50 

$66 15 

Balance (debt) 75 

To merchandise 47 46 

Balance (debt) $48 21 

" So you are heavily in debt, I see % " 

" Yes, sir ; like all the rest." 

" You have a hard time making it go." 

" Oh, sir, I couldn't make it go at all if I didn't go 
out and work myself. All the money we can see is 
what I bring home. No thanks to the mines for that." I 

Now, I would like to ask, gentlemen operators, if this 
is right ? You make a father work, you turn his sons of 
ten and fourteen into treadmill slaves, and then compel 



\ 



138 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

the mother to go outside and work in order to eke out a 
livelihood. If this be right and decent in your minds, no 
wonder you think it proper to enter into gigantic con- 
spiracies to put up the price of coal and rob the poor of 
our great cities, who buy by the scuttleful, and buy per- 
force when fuel is at its dearest. No wonder you think 
it no offense to defy the laws of Pennsylvania, for the 
lesser offenses are swallowed up by these greater ones." 
The correspondent thus pathetically continues : 
" I supped last night in a hovel with a man whom we 
may call John Richardson, and his interesting family. 
There were nine at table, six children, ranging from 
Pat, the donkey-boy of fifteen, to Charlie, the baby that 
lay asleep in its mother's lap, Mr. and Mrs. Richardson, 
and myself, a self-invited guest. 

" The bill of fare as originally planned consisted of a 
couple of loaves of bread from the ' pluck me ' store 
where John does his trading, compelled so to do if he 
would get work in the mine where he is employed, some 
salt to eat upon the bread, a bit of salt pork for the 
father and eldest son, some huckleberries and red rasp- 
berries mixed, picked by the little girl, a small libation of 
milk, John owning an interest in a cow, and some tea, 
composed, as near as I could judge, of one part cheap 
green tea and four parts sweet fern, or some other herb 
gathered near by, to eke out a warm decoction. To this 
bill of fare I added a large beef steak from the' round, a 
couple pounds of cheese, together with a paper of sweet 
crackers for the little ones. If you could have seen the 
way these unwonted luxuries were reveled in by the 
whole Richardson group, I am sure you would have felt 
the warm shivers run up and down your backbone as 
they run up and down my own. 



OUR PAUPER LABOR. 139 

" There is a full supply of so-called ' Hunks ' in town. 
This is the miner's name for the poor creatures who are 
brought over here in gangs from Hungary, Poland, Aus- 
tria, Russia and Italy, and put to work at wages that no 
man with a family to support could stand. The highest 
paid them is ninety cents a day. They work for what 
they can get, and herd together like cattle, twenty and 
thirty in a single building, sleeping on the floor, or in the 
woods when the weather is warm, and paying their 
housekeeper $4 per week for their board. The decent 
laborers of all nationalities are upon an equal footing at 
the mines, but these cattle are outcasts, and deserve to be 
so. I shall devote a separate letter to a description of 
these creatures, the bane of the mines, which will be 
taken from life." 

The Chicago Herald of July last contributes the fol- 
lowing : " Newspaper correspondents have lately achieved 
the difficult task of exploring this beautiful region — 
meaning the collieries of Hazleton, Pa. — hitherto so se- 
verely ignored \>y the protectionist hair-raisers. "With what 
commiseration for poor Ireland and benighted free-trade 
ridden England, with what pride in the institutions of the 
land of his birth, must every American read of the recent 
evictions at Hazleton collieries, near Wilkes Barre ! 

"For brutality and consequent misery they surpass the 
most exaggerated horror yet reported from Ireland. T-^ 

" Hazleton is a delightful village nestling in the carbon- 
iferous hills near the Hazel Brook mines. Village and 
hills and collieries are the property of a firm named J. S. 
Wentz & Co. The firm will not sell or lease a foot of 
land to anybody, nor allow a man to build a house for 
himself. It compels every employe in the mines to rent 
from it ? at from $5 to $6 a month. The men are forced 



140 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

to sign a lease which places them absolutely at the com- 
pany's mercy. They expressly waive every benefit or 
protection which they might have under the laws of the 
State. They agree that the moment they cease work for 
the company they must leave their homes, and can be 
ejected on ten days' notice ; and they further have to sign 
what is termed an ' amicable suit of ejectment/ by which 
the company can at any moment issue a writ and evict 
them. 

" This, mind you, is a strictly American and highly 
protected lease. Mark how it operates : Notices to quit 
were sent round to the strikers some weeks ago. On Sat- 
urday Deputy Sheriff Brockway, armed with the writs 
issued in 'amicable suit of ejectment,' and backed by a 
body of coal and iron police in the pay of the company, 
appeared in the village and began to evict. Six families 
with all their goods and chattels were thrown on the hill- 
side ; they were the families of Neal Gallagher, Daniel 
Nigan, Patrick Bowen, Barney Gallagher, Joseph McGon- 
egal and Patrick Dunlavy. Everything the house con- 
tained was thrown pell-mell out of doors and windows, 
the women and children driven out and the doors locked 
behind them. From their names it is apparent that these 
tenants came from the land of iron leases and heartless 
evictions, in the full hope, presumably, of finding relief in 
the land of the free. Their oppression did not stop here. 
Not only were they thus deprived of home and shelter, 
but not a soul in the village dared shelter them or their 
goods. The company had given notice that any tenant 
affording shelter to those evicted would be himself dispos- 
sessed. Mrs. Dunlavy was sick in bed when the officers 
entered the house, but she had to go, and her bed was 
put outside after her. It was with difficulty that she 



Otm PATJPEK LABOfi. 141 

obtained permission to stop over night at a neighbor's, 
nor were the evicted tenants able to remove their goods, 
for the company had prohibited any wagon from entering 
its lands for that purpose, and refused to grant the use of 
its ow r n teams. Women and children were compelled to 
hunt miles in search of a place to spend the night, and 
some, unable to obtain shelter, w T ere forced to sleep on the 
bare ground, without roof to cover them. Their goods 
are lying to-day just as they were thrown out, the people 
being unable to move them. 

" It is not to be supposed that such things could happen 
without comment. On the contrary, the whole region was 
boiling over with indignation, though choking its impo- 
tent wrath through fear of incurring the horror themselves, 
for everybody thereabouts belongs to Wentz & Co. Even 
the press dared not make mention of what took place. 
' What can we do ? ' a local editor demanded of the cor- 
respondent. ' The coal kings have the making of the post- 
masters, no matter which party is in power. If any paper 
dares to open its mouth about these outrages the post- 
masters get the wink and our paper is kicked upon the 
floor — its subscribers look in vain for it. One paper near 
here, at Freeland, has defied the autocrats and told the 
truth about them, and for years the editor has labored on 
the verge of bankruptcy. Oh, I tell you these men are 
above the law. We have submitted to them, and not 
until the metropolitan press take hold of the matter will 
justice ever be done here*. 

" The company store system is, of course, prevalent in 
this region, and not the least of the links in the chain of 
slavery. The Stone bill, passed in the Pennsylvania 
legislature in 1884, makes this system illegal. But w r hat 
of that ? What is law to a protected coal baron ? The 



142 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

miners are now compelled to trade at the company's 
stores, but if they don't do so — well, their services are no 
longer required. Then there is a doctor furnished by each 
company, and each miner with a family must pay seventy- 
five cents a month, whether sick or well, while each single 
man of twenty-one or more is docked fifty cents a month 
for the benefit of this pampered physician. Other doc- 
tors are 'not allowed.' Hundreds of company doctors 
have made fortunes out of the business. Then each man 
pays fifty cents a month toward the support of a priest, 
but this is not insisted on. Four dollars is stopped for 
rent, and $1.90 for coal, with sixty-five cents added for 
delivery, and sometimes taxes are added upon the dwell- 
ing. Thus it results that the men very rarely draw 
more than $2 or $3 in money at the end of the 
month. Their slavery is complete. It is remarked that, 
under these conditions, the mining population grows 
sullen and dispirited ; that the young men flee away to 
the cities as they grow up, leaving their places to be filled 
by cheap Slav labor imported for the purpose ; that the 
young women take to a life of shame rather than live in 
the cursed atmosphere of their youth ; that the children 
are joyless and ignorant. The houses are horrible ; the 
saloons are better, and the company sells the liquor. Men 
take to dissipation from sheer despair. A strained, un- 
natural feeling of dread pervades the place, for every 
one knows that spies are about and he dare not speak." 

To close this account of Pennsylvania horrors the cor- 
roborative testimony of Mr. John Jarrett is now offered, he 
being fully posted in regard to the wages and condition 
of the miners. Mr. Jarrett is authority in matters of 
protection which no protectionist will dare to impeach. 

On the 6th of September, 1883, at a meeting of the 






otra PAUPER LA£OE. 143 

TTnited States Senate Committee on Labor and Capital in 
the city of New York, Mr. Jarrett was sworn and examined : 

" Please state your residence and occupation. " 

" My name is John Jarrett. I reside at Sharon, Pa. 
At present I am president of the Amalgamated Iron 
and Steel Workers of the United States." 

u Do you know anything of the condition of the 
Pennsylvania coal-miners ? " 

" I do, sir." 

" How many do you think there are ? " 

" There must be at least ninety thousand coal-miners 
in Pennsylvania, of whom about sixty thousand are the 
heads of families." 

" The men who mine the iron and coal ? " 

"Well, coal-mining in Pennsylvania, in my opinion, 
is a more important interest than ore-mining, and the 
condition of the coal-miners in Pennsylvania is pitiable, 
miserable in the extreme." 

" You say their condition is pitiable and miserable. 
How much so is it? " 

" It is because the wages of coal-miners are too low. 
They are illy paid. Then, too, they suffer from the truck 
system. Under that system they pay one hundred per 
cent more for what they buy than our people do. Then, 
the houses they live in are extremely miserable. If I 
feel particularly for any branch of labor in this country 
it is for the poor coal-miner. He risks his life day after 
day for a mere pittance. Every time he departs from 
the light of day he does not know whether he will ever 
see it again. And, while in some branches it does not 
require much skill to be a miner, in others it does, and I 
think the coal-miner ought to be better paid, better 
clothed, better housed and better fed than he is." 



14:4: THE PROTECTIVE TAUlFF. 

"Have you been among the English miners? 55 

" Yes, sir ; and from my experience among the miners 
in England I may say that they are really better cared 
for than are the coal-miners in the United States." 

" Do you mean that they have more comfort during 
the year ? " 

" Yes, sir. Then, the truck system has been entirely 
wiped out there ; the men are getting their money every 
week." 

Mr. Jarrett, it will be seen, admits under oath that 
from personal experience the "pauper labor" in the coal 
mines of free-trade England is better cared for and has 
more comfort during the year; in short, that their con- 
dition is more prosperous than that of their brethren in 
" protection-blessed " Pennsylvania. " Sixty thousand 
heads of families," he says, " to whom probably two hun- 
dred thousand women and children are looking for sup- 
port, are in a pitiable, miserable condition, poorly paid, 
poorly clad, poorly fed and poorly housed." 

The following testimony before the United States 
Senate Committee of a " protected" workman in one of 
the cotton-mills in New England is highly interesting 
and instructive. It is the tragic history of the daily life 
of a class of "American " labor of which no parallel can 
be found in free-trade England. 

Thomas O'Donnell, a mule-spinner, at Fall River, 
Mass. : 

" I have a wife and two children. I went to work 
when I was young and have been working ever since in 
the cotton business. I earn $1.50 a da}^. I pay $1.50 a 
week for rent. I have not worked more than half the 
time since the great strike three years ago. If a man has 
not a boy to act as back-boy, in a great many cases they 



OIJR PAUPER LABOR. 145 

discharge a man and put in men who have boys capable 
enough to work in a mill and earn thirty or forty cents 
a day. And another thing that helped to keep me down : 
A year ago this month I buried the oldest boy we had, 
and that brings things very expensive on a poor man. 
For instance, it will cost here, to bury a body, about $100. 
Now, we could have that done in England for about £5. 
That would not amount to much more than about $20, 
or something in that neighborhood. That makes a good 
deal of difference. Doctor's bills are very heavy, about 
$2 a visit, and if a doctor comes once a day for two or 
three weeks it is quite a pile for a poor man to pay." 

" Will not the doctor come for a dollar a day?" 

" You might get a man sometimes, and you sometimes 
won't, but they generally charge $2 a visit." 

" To operatives ? " 

u Oh, all around. You might get one for $1.50 some- 
times." 

" They charge you as much as they charge people of 
more means?" 

" They charge as m uch as if I was the richest man in 
the city, except that some of them might be generous once 
in a while and put it down a little at the end ; but the 
charge generally is $2. That makes it hard. I have a 
brother who has four children, beside his wife and him- 
self. All he earns is $1.50 a day. He works in the iron 
works at Fall River. He only works about nine months 
out of the twelve. There is generally about three months 
of stoppage, taking the year right through, and his wife 
and family all have to be supported for a year out of the 
wages of nine months — $1.50 a day for nine months out 
of the twelve to support six of them. It does not stand 
to reason that these children and he himself can have 



146 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

natural food or be naturally dressed. His children are 
often sick, and he has to call in doctors. That is always 
hanging over him, and is a great expense to him. And, 
then, if he does not pay the bill, the trustee law comes on 
him. That is a thing that is not properly looked after. 
A man told me the other day that he was trusteed for 
$1.75, and I understood that there was a law in this State 
that a man could not be trusteed for less than $10. It 
seems to me there is something wrong in the government 
somewhere — where it is, I can't tell." 

"How much money have you saved?" 

"I have not a cent in the house; didn't have when I 
came out this morning." 

" How much money have you had within three months?" 

" I have had about $16 inside of three months." 

" Is that all you have had within the last three months 
to live on ? " 

"Yes; $16. 

" How much have you had within a year ? " 

" Since Thanksgiving I happened to get work in the 
Crescent mill, and worked there exactly thirteen w T eeks. 
I got just $1.50 a day, with the exception of a few days 
that I lost, because in following mule-spinning you are 
obliged to lose a day once in a while ; you can't follow 
it up regularly." 

"Thirteen weeks would be seventy-eight days, and, at 
$1.50 a day, that would make $117, less whatever time 
you lost?" " 

"Yes; I worked thirteen weeks there and ten days in 
another place, and then there was a dollar I got this 
week, Wednesday." 

" Taking a full year back can you tell how much you 
have had?" 



OUR PAUPER LABOR. 14:7 

" That would be about fifteen weeks' work. Last win- 
ter, as I told you, I got in and worked up to some- 
where around Fast Day, or may be New Year's Day; any- 
way, Mr. Howard has it down on his record, if you wish 
to have an exact answer to that question ; he can answer 
it better than I can, because we have a sort of union 
there to keep ourselves together." 

" Do you think you have got $150 within a year ? " 

"No, sir." 

" Have you had $125 ? " 

" Well, I could figure it up if I had time. The thir- 
teen weeks is all I have had." 

" The thirteen weeks and the $16 you have mentioned ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

" That would be somewhere about $133, if you had 
not lost any time ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

" That is all you have had ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

" To support yourself and wife and two children ? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" Have you had any help from outside ? " 

"No, sir." 

" Do you mean that yourself and wife and two children 
have had nothing but that for that time ? " 

" That is all. I got a couple of dollars' worth of coal 
last winter and the wood picked up by myself. I go 
around with a shovel and pick up clams and wood to help 
out." 

" What do you do with the clams ? "* 

" We eat them. I don't get them to sell, but just to 
eat, for the family. That is the way my brother lives, 
too, mostly. He lives close by us." 



148 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

" How many live in that way down there ? " 

" I could not count them they are so numerous. I 
suppose there are one thousand down there." 

" A thousand that live on $150 a year ? " 

" They live on less." 

"Less" than that?" 

" Yes, they live on less than I do." 

" How long has that been so ? " 

" Mostly so since I have been married." 

" How long is that ? " 

" Six years this month." 

" Why do you not go west on a farm ? " 

" How could I go ? Walk it ? " 

" Well, I want to know why you do not go out west 
on a $2,000 farm, or take up a homestead and break it and 
work it up, and then have it for yourself and family ? " 

" I can't see how I could go out west if I have noth- 
ing to go with." 

" It would not cost you over $1,500 ? " 

" Well, I never see over a $20 bill, and that is when I 
have been getting a month's pay at once. If someone 
would give me $1,500 I will go." s 

" Is there any prospect that anyone will do that ? " 

" I don't know of anybody that would." 

" You say you think there are a thousand men or so 
with families that live in that way in Fall Eiver ? " 

"Yes, sir; and I know many of them. They are 
around there by the shore. You can see them every 
day." 

" Are you a good workman ? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" Were you ever turned off because of misconduct, 
incapacity or unlit ness for work ? " 



OUR PAUPER LABOR. 149 

"No, sir. 

" Or because you did bad work ? " 

"No, sir." 

" Or because you made any trouble among the help ? " 

" No, sir." 

" What would you work for if you could get work 
right along ? " 

" Well, if I was where my family could be with me 
and I could have work every day I would take $1.50 a 
day and be glad. " 

" One dollar and a half a day, with three hundred 
days to the year, would make more than you make now 
in three or four years, would it not ? " 

" Well, I would not have to pick up clams. I have 
had no coal, except one dollar's worth, since Christmas." 

" When do the clams give out ? " 

" They give out in winter." 

" What do you have for fuel ? " 

" Wood or coal." 

"Where does the wood come from? " 

"I pick it up along the shore. Any old pieces around 
that are not good for anything. There are many more 
that do the same thing." 

" Do you get meat to live on much ? " 

"Very seldom." 

" What kind of meat do you get for your family ? " 

"Well, once in awhile we get a piece of pork and 
some clams and make a clam-chowder. We sometimes 
get a piece of corned-beef, as some of us like that." 

"Have you had any fresh beef within a month?" 

" Yes, we had a piece of porksteak for four of us yes- 
terday." 

"Have you had any beef within a month?" 



150 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

" No, sir. I was invited to a man's house on Sundav ; 
he wanted me to go up to his house and we had a dinner 
of roast pork." 

"That was an invitation out, but I mean, have you 
had any beefsteak in your own family, of your own pur- 
chase, within a month?" 

" Yes, there was a half pound, or a pound on Sun- 
day." 

" Have you had but a half pound or a pound on a 
Sunday?" " 

"That is all." 

" And there were four of you in the family?" 

"Yes, sir." 

" How many pounds of beefsteak have you had in 
your family within this year?" 

"I don't think there has been five pounds of beef- 
steak in a whole year. " 

" You have had a little porksteak ? " 

" We had a half pound of porksteak yesterday ; I 
don't know when we had any before." 

" What other kind of meat have you had during the 
year ? " 

"Well, we have had corned-beef on Sundays for 
dinner, and some cabbage ; that's all I can remember of." 

" What have you eaten ? " 

" Well, bread, mostly, when we could get it ; we 
sometimes couldn't make out to get that, and have had 
to go to bed without a meal." 

" Has there been any day in the year that you have 
had to go without anything to eat?" 

" Yes, sir, several days." 

"More than one day at a time? " 

"No, sir." 



OUR PAUPER LABOR. 151 

" How about the children and your wife ; did they 
go without anything to eat too ? " 

" My wife went out this morning and went to a 
neighbor's house and got a loaf of bread and fetched it 
home, and when she got home the children were crying 
for something to eat." 

"Have the children had anything to eat to-day ex- 
cept that, do you think ? " 

" They had that loaf of bread ; I don't know what 
they have had since then, if they have had anything." 

" Did you leave any money at home ? " 

"No, sir." 

" If that loaf is gone, is there anything in the house ? " 

" No, sir ; unless my wife goes out and gets something ; 
and I don't know who would mind the children while 
she goes out." 

"Has she any money to get anything with?" 

"No, sir." 

" Have the children gone without a meal at any time 
during the year ? " 

"They have gone without bread some clays, but we 
have sometimes got meal and made porridge of it." 

"What kind of meal?" 

" Sometimes Indian meal, and sometimes oatmeal." 

" Meal stirred up in hot water ? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" What have the children got in the way of clothing? " 

" They have got along very nicely all summer, but 
now they are beginning to feel quite sickly. One has 
one shoe on, a very poor one, and a slipper that was 
picked up somewhere. The other has two odd shoes on, 
with the heel out. He has got cold and is sickly now." 

" Have they any stockings ? " 



152 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

" He had two stockings, but his feet comes through 
them, for there is a hole in the bottom of the shoe.". 

" What have they on the rest of their person ? " 

" Well, they have a little calico shirt ; what should be a 
shirt ; it is sewed up in some shape, and one little petti- 
coat, and a kind of a little dress/ 5 

" How many dresses has your wife ? " 

" She has had one since she was married, and she 
hasn't worn that more than half a dozen times ; she has 
worn it just going to church, but when she comes back 
she takes it off, and it is pretty near as good as when she 
bought it. 

" She keeps that dress to go to church in ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

" How many dresses aside from that has she?" 

" Well, she got one three months ago." 

" What did it cost ? " 

" It cost $1 to make it, and I guess about $1 for the 
stuff, as near as I can tell." 

" The dress cost $2 2 " 

" Yes." 

"What else has she?" 

" Well, she has an undershirt that she got given to 
her, and she has an old wrapper which is about a mile 
too big for her ; somebody gave it to her." 

" She did not buy it ? " 

" No. That is all that I know she has." 

" Have you had $1 or $2 worth of coal for the winter ? " 

'' I think it was a quarter of a ton last winter ; I believe 
it was $2.25 worth." 

"Is that all you had?" 

" That is all I had last winter. All the rest was wood 
I picked up." 






OUR PAUPER LABOR. 153 

" Did you try to get work ? " 

" I was working last winter." 

" You say that a good many others are situated just 
like yourself ? " 

" Yes, sir ; I should say as many as a thousand down 
in Fall River are just in the same shape, if not worse ; 
though they can't be much worse. I have heard manj^ 
women say they would sooner be dead than living. I 
don't know what is wrong, but something is wrong. 
There is an overflow of labor in Fall river, I guess." 

" Why do not those people go out west upon farms 
and go to farming?" 

" They have not the means. Fall River being a man- 
ufacturing place it brings them there ; and when the mills 
in other places stop for want of water that brings them 
to Fall River. I think there are quite a lot of them from 
Lowell and Lawrence." 

" Is there anything else that you want to say to the 
Committee?" 

" Well, as regards debts ; it costs us so much for 
funeral expenses and doctor's expenses ; I wanted to men- 
tion that." 

The Chairman : " You have stated that. It is clear 
that nobody can afford either to get sick or to die there." 

" Well, there are plenty of them down there that are 
in poor health, but I am in good health and my children 
generally are in fair health, but the children can't pick up 
anything and only get what I bring to them." 

" Are you in debt?" 

" Yes, sir." 
. "How much?" 

" I am in debt for $15 of those funeral expenses since 
a year ago." 



154 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

" Have you paid the rest ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

"You live in a hired tenement ? " 

" Yes ; but, of course, I can't pay a big rent. My 
rent is $6 a month. The man I am living under would 
come and put me right out, and give me no notice what- 
ever, if I didn't pay my rent. He is a sheriff and auc- 
tioneer man. I don't know whether he has any authority 
to do it or not, but he does it with people." 

" Do you see any way out of your trouble ; what are 
you going to do for a living, or do you expect to stay 
right there ? " 

" Yes, I can't run around with my family." 

" You have nowhere to go to, and no w T ay of getting 
there if there was any place to go to ? " 

" No, sir ; I have no means nor anything, so I am 
obliged to stay there and try and pick up anything as I 
can." 

" Do the children go to school ? " 

" No, sir ; they are not old enough ; the oldest child is 
only three and a half ; the youngest is one and a half 
years old." 

" Is there anything else you wanted to say ? " 

"Nothing further, except that I would like some 
remedy to be got to help us poor people in some way. 
Excepting the government decides to do something with 
us we have a poor show. We are all, or mostly all, in 
good health ; that is, as far as the men who are at 
work go." 

" You don't know anything but mule-spinning, I sup- 
pose 2 " 

" That is what I have been doing, but I sometimes do 
something with pick and shovel I have worked for a 



OUR PAUPER LABOR. 155 

man at that, because I am so hard put. The way they 
do there is this : There are about twelve or thirteen men 
that go into a mill every morning, and they have to stand 
their chance looking for work. The man who has a boy 
with him, he stands the best chance ; then if it is my turn 
or a neighbor's turn who has no boy, if another man 
comes in who has a boy, he is taken right in, and we are 
left out. I said to the boss once : ' It is my turn to go in, 
and now you have taken on that man ; what am I to do ? 
I have got two little boys at home, one of them three and 
a half years, and the other one a year and a half old, and 
how am I to find something for them to eat ? I can't get 
my turn when I come here.' He said he could do noth- 
ing for me. I says, ' Have I got to starve ? Ain't I to 
have any work?' They are forcing these young boys 
into the mills that should not be in the mills at all ; forc- 
ing them in because they are throwing the mules out and 
putting on frame-rings. They are doing everything of 
that kind that they possibly can to crush down the poor 
people, the poor operatives there." 

To close this revolting chapter of human wretched- 
ness, the following picture of the condition of the highly 
protected " labor" in the ready-made-clothing trade in 
New York city, drawn by the New York Herald , is 
added : 

" The gulf that separates the custom workman from 
the unfortunates who make up ready-made clothing seems 
all but immeasurable. 

" Not in pleasant homes nor in comfortable workrooms 
are the latter to be found, but in dingy, foul-smelling 
rear houses, in moldy cellars, in crumbling garrets or in 
the noisome, cramped and crowded rooms of those traps 
— the tenement houses of New York, where men, women 



156 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

and children are huddled together at the rate 01 over 
two hundred thousand to the square mile ; where hope 
perishes and where it seems impossible to live, much less 
to work. 

" Here their lives are passed, forever engaged in a fierce 
struggle with want. Slaves of poverty, bound with fet- 
ters they cannot break, held fast in the iron grip of cir- 
cumstances, they toil on instinctively until the release 
comes. 

" The average earnings of men and women do not ex- 
ceed $6 a week the year round, and for this miserable 
pittance they must labor from twelve to sixteen hours a 
day throughout the busy season. Then come the three 
idle months during which they live — well, as best they 
can, for they have no surplus from nine months' work, 
their earnings then being barely sufficient to keep body 
and soul together. Through the streets of the city they 
plod, looking for work, and in their wretched, cheerless 
houses they rest, waiting for work. 

" Now talk about ' pauper labor in Europe ' ! Talk 
about the high tariff being the only barrier against the re- 
duction of the wages of the American workingmen to the 
basis of the starvation wages of England! Talk about 
the 'blessing' of protecting American labor against the 
competition of foreign paupers ! 

" To ' protect,' so it is alleged, American tailors and to 
raise their wages, there is a duty of forty per cent levied 
on ready-made clothes imported from abroad, or for- 
ty cents on every dollar's worth of goods, or $4 on 
each $10 worth. Now how much of this does the Ameri- 
can tailor get? Not a penny — not a farthing. His 
wages are shown to be about the same as those paid 
in London, while in fact his living is more expensive. 



OUR PAUPER LABOR. 157 

The American manufacturer, having squeezed down his 
wages to the 'pauper labor' basis, levies and collects 
from the people of this country a tax of forty cents on 
each dollar's worth of ready-made clothing and for the 
most part shoddy and worthless clothing at that, and 
pockets it." 

The foregoing are only isolated cases, but they are 
sufficient to convey a general idea of the deplorable con- 
dition of the working people in our most highly protected 
industries. The reports of special newspaper corre- 
spondents, and the sworn statement of these intelligent 
operatives simply corroborate the numerous reports which 
have almost daily been published during the last ten 
years; and the fact that such cases of destitution and 
misery as the above are never heard of among the un- 
protected farmers, and but few among the other laborers 
employed in unprotected trades and occupations, must 
convince every reflecting mind that protection is not a 
blessing but is the curse of American labor. 

Moreover these damaging facts to the claims of pro- 
tectionists have never been denied and, indeed, cannot be 
denied. These people are the living monuments of the 
heartlessness and cupidity of a privileged class. Suppose 
their assertions were admitted, that the workers in Eng- 
land are in a worse condition than ours, is there not a 
world-wide difference between the natural conditions of 
the two countries to account for it ? England is a small, 
overpopulated island, with iron and coal as her only 
natural resources. 

America is a land immense in extent, sparsely settled, 
endowed with natural w r ealth and advantages unsur- 
passed by any other country on the globe. In making 
invidious comparisons between the condition of the work- 



158 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

ers in both, the protectionists are adding insult to injury. 
Such pictures of human misery and wretchedness as the 
above should not be among the possibilities in America. 
There are many reasons why affluence and comfort should 
be the exceptions among the working classes of England, 
while there is absolutely no excuse why in the United 
States plenty should not be the rule. 

And what is the principal cause of this anomaly ? It 
is not so much insufficiency of wages as insufficiency of 
work. 

The Fall Eiver " clam-picker " stated the question most 
tersely when he said : " I would be perfectly satisfied 
with $1.50 a day, if I had work all through the year." 
And why this lack of work ? England is selling five hun- 
dred yards of woolen and cotton fabrics to foreign 
nations where we sell but twenty, and all other manu- 
factured articles in proportion. 

Is the Englishman such a superior business man? Has 
he more good sense ; has he greater spirit of enterprise ? 
Are the managers of his mills more efficient and invent- 
ive than ours? No; but instead of confining his trade 
within England's realm, and instead of insisting on cash 
sales, he trades everywhere at a profit. He trades his 
cotton goods and miscellaneous wares at a profit with the 
merchant of Peru for copper. He trades his cutlery and 
dry goods in Buenos Ayres for the hides, tallow and wool of 
the Argentine Republic. He gives steady work to thou- 
sands of laborers in manufacturing his copper into utensils, 
and the Argentine hides into leather, which he then trades 
at a profit with the Frenchman for wines, silk and jewelry 
which he sells at a profit at home, and the wool he sells 
at a profit for cash, or trades for agricultural produce in 
New York ; proceeds ti, New Orleans and buys cotton at 



OUR PAUPER LABOR. 159 

the same figure his Yankee competitor buys it for, takes it 
home, setting his countless operatives to work it up into 
fabrics for the markets of the United States and the 
rest of the world. But the Englishman has this one 
additional advantage over all his competitors : his govern- 
ment throws no obstacle in the way of his trading pro- 
pensities ; it gives him free scope in providing his manu- 
facturing friends in Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, 
and on the Clyde, with all the raw material required, 
without taxing it a penny. 

Suppose the American government should resolve to 
pursue a similar liberal policy ? Is there a reasonable 
ground for doubt, that, in possession of the enormous 
natural advantages over those of Great Britain, we would 
not soon outstrip that country in the race for commercial 
supremacy, secure an abundance of work for our laborers, 
and thus put an end to pauperism in the manufacturing 
centers of the United States? 



THE EFFECT OF PROTECTION UPON 
UNPROTECTED LABOR, 



THERE is some plausibility in the claim of protection- 
ists that the laborers employed in the coal and iron 
mines, in the furnaces and rolling-mills, the cotton and 
woolen-mills, and other manufacturing industries (the 
products of which are protected by high import taxes), 
receive some benefit from that protection, and there 
may be some excuse for the belief of the miner or mill 
operative, that a system which increases the profits of his 
"boss" has the effect of increasing his wages, and for him to 
grow enthusiastic over that system ; but how a person 
employed in the building or the thousands of other unpro- 
tected trades and occupations, or a farmer, or laborer, 
who receives not one cent's benefit from this system, 
while it increases everything he buys, can "enthuse" over it, 
is absolutely incomprehensible, and vividly reminds one 
of the stupid " white trash " of ante helium times. 

Only a quarter of a century ago the slave-holders 
claimed that it was in the interest of the negro that he 
robbed him of his labor, and the three million " white 
trash " who suffered most from the effect of the peculiar 
institution, lustily re-echoed that claim. 

To-day the iron and coal lords of Pennsylvania are 
setting up the claim that it is in the interest of their work- 
ingmen that they ask protection for their product, and a 
majority of the fifteen million unprotected farmers and 
workingmen, who are among the chief victims of this 
system, are at the same time its staunchest supporters. 

160 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON UNPROTECTED LABOR. 161 

There is no difference in principle and effect between 
the ignorant white trash champion of slavery times, 
and the ignorant, white labor champion of protection of 
to-day. 

Any sane man, giving this subject but a moment's re- 
flection, must perceive that the only American labor that 
can receive any possible benefit from protection is the 
labor employed in making goods similar to those that 
are imported. 

It would be as useless and as absurd to lay import 
duties upon articles that from the nature of things can- 
not be imported, as it is to lay a duty upon articles that 
are not imported, such as upon wheat and other agricult- 
ural products, of which we have a surplus to sell. 

An article produced or service rendered in this country 
cannot be protected against a similar article produced or 
similar service rendered abroad, unless this foreign article 
or service can be brought in competition with the home 
article or service, and the wages of labor employed in pro- 
ducing such articles or in rendering such services can, there- 
fore, not possibly be affected by a tariff on imports, high 
or low. 

Brick or stone buildings, for instance, cannot be im- 
ported, and as long as the European " pauper builder" 
stays and works in Europe, he cannot compete with the 
American builder; our masons, bricklayers, carpenters, 
roofers, plumbers, plasterers, painters and all other work- 
men employed in the building trade, or in rendering per- 
sonal services, cannot in the nature of things be protected 
by a tariff on houses, and it is the height of impudence to 
insist that the protective system can or does affect, favor- 
ably or unfavorably, directly or indirectly, the wages of 
any man employed in any of the various branches of the 



162 THE PROTECTIVE TARlM". 

building trade, or the thousands of occupations entirely 
disconnected from manufacture or mining. 

To be sure, the " pauper carpenter," bricklayer, plas- 
terer, etc., may come across the Atlantic and bring his 
labor to this country free of duty, to compete with the 
labor of American workmen, by offering to work for lower 
wages. 

There are no laws in the United States protecting 
labor in the building trade against an overflow of " for- 
eign pauper labor." There is absolute free trade in 
that. 

This holds good for all unskilled labor of the country, 
whether employed in protected industries or not; whether 
engaged in tilling the soil, handling the spade, or swinging 
the ax. It holds good for the great mass of the American 
laborers employed upon the farms, upon our streets or in 
the shops, in trade and transportation as well as those ren- 
dering professional and personal service. The unpro- 
tected classes, form the largest majority of the producers, 
such as merchants, tradesmen and mechanics of the coun- 
try; they are the rule, the protected few the exception. 

In order to make this statement clear, let us take a few 
occupations and examine the claims made by the protec- 
tionist, that the labor therein employed is benefited by the 
protective system. 

" Claim Every Thing " is the shibboleth of protection- 
ism, but it will hardly do to claim that European railroad, 
express and inland navigation companies, and the 
"pauper labor" therein employed, can by any possible 
device be brought into competition with similar compa- 
nies and its labor in this country. To be sure, the 
" European pauper" employed in that line of business 
may come to this country and import his labor faculties 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON UNPROTECTED LABOR. 163 

free of duty, and being accustomed to work for " pauper 
wages " and to live upon cheaper food, he may, as is 
claimed, very profitably be used by our transportation 
magnates in " bearing" this particular labor market, and 
in compelling their employes to submit to a cut in wages. 

Now, will some acute protectionist inform us what 
earthly benefit it is to any of the million of men employed 
in the transportation business, that the product of the 
cotton and woolen manufacturer, of the iron and coal 
operator, and of the whole tribe of subsidy beggars is 
protected by the Federal government from 50 per cent 
to 150 per cent against the product of their foreign com 
petitors? The benefits are all the other way, and every 
person employed in transportation is tributary to the 
manufacturer to the amount of the increase in the price 
of the commodities he has to purchase. 

According to the last United States census there were 
in 1880 two million persons classified as laborers. Their 
tools are very simple; they consist of the shovel, the 
spade and the pick, the saw and the ax, the spur and the 
whip. They are our daily toilers, doing the work which 
requires great physical exertion. They clean our streets 
and sewers, dig our trenches, throw up our railroad em- 
bankments, drive our teams and take care of our horses, 
split our wood, load and unload our vessels and freight 
cars — in short, they perform the toilsome drudgery of the 
American people. 

All this labor has of a necessity to be done here, and 
"European pauper labor" cannot possibly compete with 
the American laborer, and it is adding insult to injury to 
tell him that the rate of his wages depends upon the 
amount of import taxes piled upon the things he must buy. 

The only way in which the foreign pauper laborers can 



164 THE PROTECTIVE TAKIFE. 

be brought into competition with our American labor is by 
shipping them to this country, which is done to a liberal 
extent by the bosses of our protected industries.* Hun- 
dreds of thousands of these laborers are yearly landing 
at Castle Garden under the system of absolute free trade, 
immediately to compete with similar American laborers, 
and by overcrowding the labor market are breaking 
down the wages of our own labor. ]\ T ow let us suppose 
the protective system were wiped out ; cheap European 
commodities permitted to come in at a low duty, compell- 
ing the home manufacturer to lessen his profits by lower- 
ing the price of his goods ; is it not plain, as far as these 
two million of laborers are concerned, they being mainly 
consumers, that they would be immensely benefited by 
the change ? 

From the same census report it appears that in 1880 
1,075,653 persons earned their livelihood as domestic serv- 
ants. The rate of wages of these people differs accord- 
ing to circumstances and locality. 

When gold was discovered in California there was 
hardly a limit to the prices paid for domestic service; 
$5 nor $10 a day commanded the best. 

* About a year and a half ago there was a strike of the cigar-makers of the 
city of Milwaukee. They were striking for an increase. At that time the manu- 
facturers there accorded the demands of the cigar-makers, except one firm, 
which, being the largest, declined to fall in. As a consequence, the other manu- 
facturers, who had already acceded to the wishes of the strikers, were induced 
to lock them out and not to re-employ them while they continued to belong to 
the " union " or would insist upon an increase of wages. This result accom- 
plished, the advertising began throughout the country for cigar-makers to go 
to Milwaukee — this firm, at the same time, sending agents to Germany to insert 
in the public papers very rose-colored pictures of Milwaukee and the surround- 
ing country, of the advantages of employment offered by them, etc. This was 
not only done, but circulars were sent out, and the consuls of the United 
States, stationed in the different parts of Germany, indorsed these rose-colored 
pictures and descriptions with their signatures and with their official seals. A 
very good use was made of the representatives of this country in Germany, it 
will be seen, to assist in defeating and undermining the workingmen in Mil- 
waukee.— Report of the U. S. Committee on Labor and Capital, 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON UNPROTECTED LABOR. 165 

In Chicago, or in any other large city, the wages of 
domestic servants, both male and female, are higher than 
in the smaller towns in the country. Has the protective 
tariff anything to do with that ? And if domestic serv- 
ants in this country earn, on an average, ten times the 
wages paid in Germany for the same labor, is it on 
account of protection, or is it because there are ten per- 
sons in Germany to one here willing to do the work of a 
domestic servant? 

There is absolute free trade in domestic labor, and if 
all indications do not deceive, the European " pauper serv- 
ant" will soon overflow this country and will cause a 
reduction of wages, even if all importation of foreign 
goods are prohibited. Protection to the one million 
servants of the country means no more nor less than fifty 
per cent additional cost for every article they must buy. 

Under the classification of manufacture and mining 
the last census report enumerates 172,726 blacksmiths. 

Now, it would probably puzzle Mr. " pig-iron " Kelly 
himself, if he were asked to exactly state where the bene- 
fits of the protective system to a blacksmith come in. 
Our horses and mules can not conveniently be shipped to 
Europe to be shod by some " pauper blacksmith" for one- 
quarter of the amount that it costs here. 

There is one way, however, in which this horse-shoe- 
ing may be made cheaper, in spite of the high tariff on 
horse-shoes, nails, coal and the smith's tools, and that is, 
by bringing the u pauper blacksmith" from Europe to 
this country, on the free-trade-in-labor plan, in suffici- 
ently large numbers to create a surplus over the demand 
of that particular labor here, when increased competition 
among the blacksmiths will enable the bosses to " bear " 
the wages. 



166 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

If the solicitude of the protectionists for American 
workingmen is genuine, why do they not ask Congress 
to lay a heavy tax on the import of pauper blacksmiths ? 
Their solicitude is a fraudulent pretense by which black- 
smiths, the same as all other toilers, are fooled into the 
support of the so-called "Protection to American Labor" 
folly. 

The same census furnishes the information that 44,851 
persons are devoting their time to the useful occupation 
of barbers. The average price for a shave in large cities 
is fifteen cents, and ten cents in the country towns. In 
Germany the same service may be obtained for less than 
one-third the amount, or four or five cents. 

Will any protectionist assert that it is the protective 
system which enables the American barber to obtain 
three times the amount charged in Germany for the 
same service ? Is it not mainly because in Germany peo- 
ple shave themselves to a large extent, while in busy 
America, where time is money, it is cheaper to be shaved ? 
Consequently, barbers here are in more demand, while 
the supply is limited. Increased demand in services, the 
same as increased demand in goods, is always followed by 
an increase in wages. 

Now, if these 44,851 barbers are so fortunately sit- 
uated as to obtain three or four times the wages their 
less fortunate fellows obtain in Europe, are they in any 
way indebted to the prevailing system of protection for this 
special advantage, and have the men in charge of, or who 
are employed in any other industry, the right to demand 
that each one of these barbers contribute a part of his 
earnings, say one or two cents from each shave, to the 
support and encouragement of some other particular in- 
dustry, and without a farthing's equivalent in return? 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON UNPROTECTED LABOR. 167 

The claim is too flimsy to be earnestly considered by 
anybody. 

The census says that in 1880 our flouring-mills occu- 
pied 53,440 millers. Suppose these millers earn $2.50 a 
day on the average, while the European miller earns only 
seventy-five cents a day. How is the American miller to 
be protected against the pauper miller of Europe? 

It would be an expensive business for us to send our grain 
to Europe to be made into flour by the European miller and 
shipped back again. But even if it were possible, it 
would not be profitable, for, although we are paying our 
millers three times the wages paid to millers abroad, 
owing to our natural advantages and the superior skill 
and intelligence of our mill operators, American flour 
undersells in the markets of Liverpool the "pauper" flour 
of every other country. 

Nothing ca,nprotect, that is, can increase the American 
millers' wages but an enlarged market for his product. 
The more flour we export the more millers we need. If 
the demand exceeds the supply, a rise in wages is in- 
evitable. 

The last United States census enumerates 79,625 engi- 
neers and firemen. It would probably tax the ingenuity 
of the "smartest" protectionist to tell us how the wages 
of these 80,000 American laborers can be so threatened 
by the cheap wages of the European " pauper engineer 
and fireman" as to require "protection." 

Our engines cannot conveniently be " fired " and " run " 
from Europe with their cheap " pauper engineer and fire- 
man" labor. All that work has to be done here. The 
only competition, and a consequent reduction in wages, 
this class of labor has to fear, is the labor of the European 
"pauper engineer and fireman," which, under the free 



168 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

trade system in labor is imported into this country by 
thousands. 

Is it due to the protective system that the 85,6 71 
physicians and surgeons, the 227,710 teachers, the 30,477 
musicians, enumerated in the last census, receive on the 
average double and triple the remuneration similar service 
commands in Germany ? 

No, it is due to the exceptional natural advantages 
this country has over those of any other country in the 
world. And as these useful classes of our population can- 
not obtain any possible benefit from protection, why 
should they be taxed upon their necessaries for the benefit 
of some manufacturer ? 

They are all willing to contribute their share to the 
support of the government, but every dollar taken from 
them for the benefit of another citizen is simply robbery. 

The last census enumerates 380,718 persons as clerks. 
It will not be maintained that the wages of these clerks, 
whose labor has necessarily to be done here, can be pro- 
tected against the cheap wages of the "pauper clerk" in 
Europe by a tariff on imports. It is a plain matter of sup- 
ply and demand. If trade is brisk the demand for clerks 
will increase and so will their wages, provided the sup- 
ply in clerks is short. 

But, as agriculture is being discarded by " Young 
America," and the trades-unions step in and prohibit our 
young boys from learning a trade, clerical help will soon 
be a drug in the general labor market of the country, 
when the wages of this class may fall below the wages of 
the pauper clerks in overcrowded Europe. 

The washing of our dirty linen by the 121,942 launder- 
ers and washwomen enumerated in the last census is much 
more expensive here than in Europe. But the " pauper 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON UNPROTECTED LABOR. 169 

launderers " of the old country who would do the work 
for less than one-half cannot, as long as they remain there, 
possibly compete with the American labor employed in 
washing. There being no competition, there can be no 
protection against it. 

But, on the other hand, protection enhances the price 
of every article the launderers have to purchase fifty per 
cent on the average, consequently reducing the amount of 
their earnings just that much. 

Of what benefit is it to the 64,678 clergymen enumer- 
ated in the last census that, by a shrewdly-devised system 
of taxation, the manufacturer of cloth is placed in a posi- 
tion to charge fifty or seventy -five per cent more for the 
clothes he is obliged to appear in upon a Sunday \ 

Does the cloth manufacturer divide the extra profit 
obtained through protection among the -preachers ? 

But it is useless to continue these illustrations ; the 
remarks made in reference to each applies with equal 
force to all the 4,047,238 persons enumerated in the last 
census under the head of professional and personal serv- 
ices; to the 1,819,256 persons enumerated under the head 
of trade and transportation, and to over half the persons 
enumerated under manufacture — as, for instance, the 
41,309 bakers, the 194,079 boot and shoemakers, whose 
employers could compete with any shoemaking employ- 
ers in the world if they were not heavily taxed by 1 he 
duties on raw material, the 373,143 carpenters and join- 
ers, the 49,138 coopers, the 34,536 employes (not specified), 
the 41,352 fishermen and oystermen, the 102,473 brick 
and stone masons, the 128,556 painters and varnishers, 
the 22,083 plasterers, the 72,726 printers, lithographers 
and stereotypers, the 77,050 saw-mill employes and the 
hundreds of thousands in numerous other trades. 






EFFECT OF THE PROTECTIVE SYSTEM ON 
MANUFACTURERS. 



IF, as I have endeavored to show, the protective system 
does not promote the general prosperity of the coun- 
try, that it injuriously affects the farmer, that it does 
not benefit labor employed in protected industries, while 
it robs unprotected labor of half of its earnings through 
the increased price of the necessaries of life, the system 
ought, at least, to possess the quality of benefiting the 
industries for which it was established. 

Now, if I am able to show that while protection 
enriches a few of the manufacturers and mine owners it 
injures the many, that the tax upon the raw material of 
the manufacturer prevents him from competing in foreign 
markets, that it impedes the progress and full develop- 
ment of our industrial resources, that it robs labor of its 
opportunities for steady employment, that it places a pre- 
mium upon the production of shoddy, worthless articles, 
that, by destroying competition, it fosters combinations 
and monopolies, and the organization of powerful 
trusts, to the extortion of the consumers, and to the det- 
riment of individual thrift and enterprise, and last, but 
not least, that it has the pernicious effect of dividing the 
people of the United States into two antagonistic 
classes, then I believe I have proven my case. 

As has already been shown, the exorbitant increase 
of the tariff rates during the needs of the late war, causing 
a falling off in the importation of foreign articles, had the 

170 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 171 

immediate effect of increasing the demand for the home- 
made product. The wastefulness of a prolonged war, the 
steady flow of immigration to the United States, and, later 
on, the needs of the recuperating South, all served to keep 
this demand in excess of the supply. 

Attracted by the enormous profits realized, capital 
began to drift into numerous manufacturing enterprises ; 
the facilities of old factories were enlarged, new ones 
established, and supplied with modern and more effective 
machinery. 

The causes above enumerated, added to the speculative 
period of railroad extension and a depreciated currency, 
had the effect of keeping prices stationary. Times were 
good and the people apparently prosperous. Labor found 
ample and remunerative employment, and the manufact- 
urers and corporations realized immense fortunes. 

But when these extraordinary demands were supplied, 
and all the railroads needed and many that were not 
needed had bean built, the home market for iron and the 
various manufactured products became " glutted," and as 
a consequence, in 1878 the inflated manufacturing balloon 
exploded with a crash. The sad story of that period is 
well remembered in every household in the land, for but 
few were left unharmed. It was a period of bankruptcies, 
of financial ruin and desolation. Protection was thus 
brought face to face with its logical effect — over-produc- 
tion followed by industrial paralysis. This period was 
forcibly described by Gen. Banks, who, upon the floor of 
Congress, said : 

"Business is suspended. The people do not buy and 
they do not sell. They are holding their breath, waiting 
for what may possibly be the result of the action of 
Congress upon these subjects, or for some fortunate and 



172 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

fundamental change in the condition of financial and 
public affairs — a change that I fear will not come. This 
year must be one of calamity to the government, as it is 
of financial and industrial depression and distress to the 
people in all parts of the country. The signs of it are all 
around us ; multitudes out of employment ; labor strikes 
threatened or inaugurated of unprecedented magnitude 
in this country and in Europe; savings banks tottering ; 
unpaid taxes accumulating with frightful rapidity; debts 
increasing ; property diminishing in value ; confidence 
wanting and hope failing; stay laws suggested or 
enacted ; and too frequent suggestions of communism and 
revolution awakening." 

To Mr. Banks' gloomy picture may be added that of 
the Hon. ¥m. M. Evarts, Secretary of State, under Presi- 
dent Hayes, an ardent protectionist, who in his annual 
report said : 

"Out of 1,714 blast furnaces, 478 are out of blast, in 
all representing $400,000;000 capital." 

Add to these the closing u^ of thousands of various 
manufacturing establishments and mines for good, or for 
longer and shorter periods, the universal cutting of wages, 
and the throwing out of employment of hundreds of 
thousands of workmen, who, as "tramps," filled the 
highways of the country, and whose physical needs 
served to create a state of insecurhy in the land, and 
the picture will be completed. 

This period was but the natural result of the govern- 
ment's hot-house policy, and it is easy to see that a com- 
parative few manufacturers, those only who were able to 
weather the storm, were the beneficiaries of the fifteen 
years of protection, while some of the people who had 
been prosperous enough to save a few dollars during this 







EFFECT OF PROTECTION OK MANUFACTURERS. 173 

historical period of inflation, now lost it through the col- 
lapse of savings banks, insurance companies and the 
shrinkage in railroad stocks. 

This was the state of the country at the close of the 
last decade, a condition in which it might have remained 
indefinitely, but for the years of plentiful harvests imme- 
diately following. 

FREE RAW MATERIAL. 

Now, as to the second proposition, "that the tax upon 
the raw material of our manufacturer prevents him from 
competing in foreign markets, impedes the progress and 
full development of our industrial resources, and robs 
labor of its opportunities for steady employment." 

I think I am safe in saying, that the most pernicious 
effect of this system upon the manufacturing industries 
of the country is the tax levied upon its raw material. 
This import tax, which also enhances the price of the 
home article from twenty-five to fifty ppr cent, naturally 
increases the cost of production to that extent, thus pre- 
venting our manufacturers from competing with the for- 
eign producers, who obtain their raw material tay free. 

The great staples upon which our principal industries 
are based, are iron, wool, cotton and coal. 

There is hardly a finished article of any kind of 
which one or the other of these materials is not a compo- 
nent part, and consequently, any tax laid upon these mate- 
rials is a tax upon every factory in the land, and is as much 
a tax upon the necessaries of life as a tax would be upon 
bread and meat. But while it unjustly oppresses the 
American consumer, it has also the effect of shutting out 
the American manufacturer of finished goods from the 
benefits of the world's market, because his foreign com- 
petitor pays no such tax. 



174 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

Take the iron industry, for instance. Consider for a 
moment the multiplicity of interests involved in trans- 
forming the crude material into the infinitesimal varieties 
of articles, from the huge naval iron-clad to the insignifi- 
cant hair-pin ; the thousands of large and small factories, 
keeping busy hundreds of thousands of hands ! Think of 
the unremitting strain and ingenuity which taxes the 
brain of the managers of these various interests, in the 
endeavor to extend the market for their wares in compe- 
tition with the English, German and French manufacturer, 
which they are now doing to a limited extent, * and then 
contemplate the action of our Federal government, which 
is doing its utmost to stifle these laudable efforts by 
authorizing the owners of a few iron mines and their rail- 
road allies, to levy a tribute of $7.00 a ton upon their raw 
material ! 

Aside from the impudent and absolutely fraudulent 
claim, that protection on iron ore and pig-iron is needed 

* Testimony of Mr. D. B. Buf ord, of Rock Island, one of the most extensive 
and successful plow makers in the world, before the tariff commission : " There 
is not one article that we make, that is in the least benefited by the tariff. On 
the contrary, almost everything- that we buy is enhanced by the tariff, and of 
course our customers, in turn, have to pay more for what they buy of us. Almost 
every manufacturer in the West labors under this disadvantage. We ship large 
amounts of our products abroad where we have to compete with foreign makers. 
Elsewhere we are compelled to enter the field and fight, hampered by increased 
cost of materials, caused by the duties upon iron and steel." Mr. Lucius 
Wells, formerly manager of Deere & Co., Moline, Til., " which turned out 100,000 
plows in 1881, says that the cost of every implement turned out by his house is 
enhanced 15 to 25 per cent by the present tariff, with no compensating benefit." 

"The industries at Trenton are suffering from useless obstructions imposed 
by the existing tariff. I seek to remove the obstructions in order that the capital 
and labor employed in branches of business affected by them may have steady 
and remunerative occupation which is now impossible. The removal of the 
duty on scrap iron, for example, Avhich benefits no existing interest whatever, 
would enable ev T ery idle train in Trenton to be run day and night, and the money 
which is now paid for foreign rods would be largely distributed among the 
working-classes of Trenton who are condemned to idleness through no fault of 
their own, and every business interest of the city would flourish in a corre- 
sponding degree."— Speech of Hon, Abram S, Hewitt, at Trenton, N, J, 



EFFECT OF PItoTECTlOtf Otf MANUFACTURERS. 1Y5 

against the pauper labor of Europe, there is no earthly 
reason why the producers of that material should be 
entitled to more favors than the producer of cotton, who 
gets along very well without protection. 

Considering, that our iron ore is found almost on the 
earth's surface, consequently mined with greater facility 
and at less expense, there is no good reason why this ma- 
terial should be higher in price than in England.* At all 
events the additional expense of freight to bring it here 
would more than cover the difference in the price of labor. 

* " There is no place in the United States, and probably not in any other 
country, where iron can be manufactured more cheaply than here." (Geolog. 
Survey of Ohio, Vol. Ill, page 174.) And again (Ibid, page 661) : "In facilities 
for making iron, the owners of these lands are substantially independent of 
tariff and panics. There is really no danger that the price of iron will become 
so low that it cannot be manufactured at a profit." 

* The Pittsburgh Gazette (high tariff) proclaims in tones of exultation that at 
last natural gas and superior workmanship have " overcome the low wages of 
England and other European countries." It goes on to tell, with much super- 
fluity of words, how that Park Brothers, of the Black Diamond Steel Works, 
have established branch houses in six or eight of the principal cities of Europe, 
India and Australia, for the sale of the finer grades of steel, particularly that 
used in making edged tools, The cities referred to are London, Paris, Stock- 
holm, St. Petersburg, Madras, Christiana, Dartmund, Sydney, Melbourne and 
Athens. The reader is assured that this " means business " on a large and 
increasing scale. He is further informed that such is the superiority of the 
Pittsburgh works in the production of these grades of steel, that Swedish iron 
is imported by the manufacturers, made into fine steel, and sent back to the 
country from which it originally came. 

Now, it is exceedingly gratifying to know that Pittsburgh manufacturers 
can make tool steel and sell it in the markets of the world, including England, 
and ask no favors of competitors. That is the sort of thing in which Ameri- 
cans may justly take pride. And it is the sort of thing that we would witness 
on a far more extensive scale, if our manufacturers were not protected to 
death ; that is to say, if they were not handicapped by tariff taxes on produc- 
tion, at every turn, as the Pittsburgh concern is, from the ore to the finished 
product. It would be still more gratifying to be fully assured that the Pitts- 
burgh concern was engaged in straight and honest competition. It will not be 
so gratifying to learn that it is exacting from American purchasers the full 
pound of flesh allowed by the tariff, and thus making inordinate profits at 
home to enable it to sell to foreigners at a trifling profit. Full assurance upon 
that point would materially deepen the glow of pride with which one contem- 
plates a signal industrial triumph achieved by Americans, even, though they 
may be largely indebted to gas for their success.— Chicago Times. 



176 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

The actual cost of producing a ton of pig-iron in 
Pennsylvania and Ohio has been variously estimated at 
from $10 to $13, but the statement of some of the most 
prominent iron manufacturers, in reply to a circular letter 
from the American Iron and Steel Association, the lead- 
ing protectionist organization in the country, leaves no 
doubt upon that subject. 

These gentlemen admit, that, "when wages were 
much higher, the actual wages paid for mining iron 
ore were $2.81, and for the coal $1.22. Adding 40 
cents wages paid for quarrying limestone, we get the 
total labor for producing the raw material of one ton of 
pig iron to be $4.43, instead of $10.26, as claimed by the 
association. If, to the actual labor paid for mining the 
raw material, as given positively by the census — $1.35 
per ton, of ore, which the statistics of Mr. Swank, the 
general manager of the association, says averages 
fifty-five per cent metallic iron, and 79 cents per ton of 
coal, of which one and one-half tons are used to smelt 
a ton of pig — and to the labor of transportation, as 
estimated by the protectionist Iron Age, we add a 
profit of twenty per cent, the expenses at the furnace 
itself, and the sundry charges, we find that the real cost 
of the pig, per ton, will vary from $10.50 to $13, accord- 
ing as the business is conducted under economic man- 
agement and with improved plant, or the reverse." 

This statement is signed by J. B. Sargent, Sargent & 
Co., New Haven, Conn. ; Edw. J. Shriver, New York ; 
Graham McAdam, late president Cromwell Iron Com- 
pany, New York ; Lindley Vinton, president Vinton Iron 
Works, Indianapolis ; M. D. Harter, treasurer and super- 
intendent Aultman & Taylor Company, Mansfield, Ohio ; 
John II. Miller, secretary and treasurer Schreidt & Miller 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 177 

Company, Mansfield, Ohio ; Isaac Harter, president Peer- 
less Reaper Company, Canton, Ohio; W. G. Gibbons, 
Wilmington, Del. 

Several iron furnaces in the Hocking Valley, Ohio, are 
now producing pig-iron at $10 per ton. But of late years 
the South, with her eleven thousand square miles of coal 
beds, of iron ore and limestone, has entered the field 
and will prove a much more dangerous competitor to 
the iron lords of Pennsylvania than England.* 

* Recent investigations of the cost of making* pig-iron in the South throw 
additional ligiit on this subject. Mr. R. W. Knott, of the Louisville Courier- 
Journal, cited in that journal in 1884 figures from the books of an Alabama fur- 
nace producing* 1,786 tons per month, showing* that pig* was actually produced at 
a cost of $9.77 per ton (including $4.76 for coke, $1.30 for ore, 80 cents for lime- 
stone, $1.67 wages, 61 cents officers' salaries, 53 cents taxes, stock, fuel, and mis- 
cellaneous expenses). Mr. R. P. Porter, of the Philadelphia Press, protectionist, 
was sent South to counteract these figures, but his own report, in his paper of 
June 4, 1884, gave among his figures a cost of $11.90 at Sloss furnace, $9.20 Alice 
furnace, $11.90 Cowan furnace. Mr. J. C Bayles, of the Iron Age, in his pres- 
idential address at Chattanooga, before the American Institute of Mining En- 
gineers, made an estimate of $12.35, being for ore, $3 (2 1-5 tons at $1.25); for 
coke, $5 (two tons, at $2.50) ; for limestone, one ton, 85 cents ; for wages and 
salaries, $2.50; for interest and expense, 50 cents ; for repairs and replacements, 
50 cents. Since the furnaces at Birmingham, Ala., neither mine coal or ore, nor 
quarry limestone for themselves, but buy their materials, the cost of this part 
of the product is directly ascertainable by anyone who can get at the facts on 
the spot. Mr. Lindley Vinton, president of the Vinton Iron Works, Indian- 
apolis, visited these furnaces in May, 1885, and describes the region as the most 
promising field for iron making in the world — rich coal in thick veins running 
horizontally near the surface, covering an area of 11,000 square miles ; along its 
borders rich hematite and fossil ores and beds of limestone, its surface covered 
with forests for charcoal, the furnaces of the best models, with Whitwall stoves, 
and every facility for making the best use of the ore ; limestone, coal and char- 
coal at the furnace-doors. The ore, a red and brown hematite, is delivered in 
the stock-house, guaranteed to contain 50 per cent of iron, at 90 cents per ton, 
limestone at 90 cents per ton, coal at $1.15 per ton ; " the material for a ton of 
iron can be purchased for from $4.25 to $5, delivered at the stock-house." Using 
Mr. Bayles' figures as to quantity, with actual figures instead of estimates of 
price, we have then for ore (2 1-5 tons, at 90 cents) $1.98 instead of $3 ; for coke 
(two tons, at $2 to $2.25) $4 or $4.25, instead of $5 ; for limestone, 90 cents, 
instead of his 85 cents, a net decrease of $1.37 or $1.47, making the cost of mater- 
ial $6.88 or $7.38. The estimate for quantity of coke used is large. Adding Mr. 
Bayles' own estimate ($3.50) for labor, salaries, expense and replacement, we 
have the total cost $10.38 to $10.88 per ton. Mr. A. S. Hewitt estimates the labor 
cost at furnace at $1.40 per ton, a still further reduction. It was stated that the 



178 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

In Bradstreet's market report, September 23, 1887, 
the selling price of our pig-iron was shown to be $21 and 
$22 a ton, or an additional profit of from $9 to $12 per 
ton. And for whose benefit ? It is claimed that foreign 
ore and pig-iron are taxed to protect American labor. 
But how much of this extra price goes to the miner 
and iron-worker? Last year this same pig-iron was 
quoted at $18, a net increase of $3 per ton in one year. 
Have the wages of the men who did the work been in- 
creased one cent during that time ? No, and as long as 
they believe that protection does increase their wages, 
there is no necessity for actually doing it. It is for no 
such purpose that the government of the United States 



cost of ore to Mr. Morris was 25 cents per ton royalty (reaching as high as $10,000 
per acre to the Pratt Iron and Coal Company, owning the mines), 29 cents min- 
ing, 25 cents transportation to furnace, the selling price being 90 cents, delivered 
at stock-house. The monopoly of the Pratt Iron and Coal Company makes the 
cost of coke high, although the coal is mined by convicts whose wages are bare 
subsistence. Coke is quoted at $2.25 per ton, but costs the furnace men in quan- 
tities nearer $2, whereas, with a fair profit to the coal mines, it should not cost 
over $1.25 to $1.50. Connellsville coke is quoted in Pennsylvania at $1.50 f . o. b., 
and has been as low as $1.15. The figures of Southern production are criticised 
as making insufficient allowance for repairs and replacements, interest and 
adequate profit, and there is probably some force in these criticisms. But 
taking all these allowances into consideration, it is evident that pig can be made 
there profitably at between $10 to $11 per ton. The laborers at these furnaces 
and coke ovens, pets of " protection," are paid 75 to 90 cents, a few $1 per day ; 
but, taking the average wages paid according to the census report of 1880, when 
the coke chargers got $1.49 and the laborer $1.27 per day, and the labor figures 
were given as labor for mining 1.6 tons of coal 38 cents, coking 43^ cents, with 
an average consumption of V& tons of coke per ton of iron ; for mining ore CO 
cents to $1 per ton ; limestone never over 40 cents per ton — Mr. Vinton figures 
the labor cost in a ton of iron at labor in coke 75 cents to $1 ; labor in ore 60 
cents to $2 ; labor in limestone 20 cents to 40 cents ; labor at furnace $1 to $1.50, 
a total of $3.05 to $4.90. All the rest of the cost of pig is cost of transportation 
of materials (partly labor), royalty to the mine-owner, interest and profit to the 
capitalist. The landholder, who has perhaps bought land of the government at 
$1 to $5 per acre, is the great beneficiary of the protective system. Next to him 
come the transportation companies, with their watered stocks and monopoly 
tariffs. It is their partnership which causes the $25 shares of Lake Superior 
mines to sell at $300, while laborers get $1 a day or less. 

From Secretary Manning''s Report, 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 1^9 

stands guard at the frontier and prevents foreign ore from 
being brought in in competition with American ore. 

It is for the sole benefit of the handful of owners of ore- 
lands and the powerful railroad magnates, that our iron 
and steel industries are prevented from supplying Mexico, 
South America and the rest of the world with their mis- 
cellaneous fabrics, and our workingmen are robbed of 
steady and lucrative employment. 

There is but little difference in the actual cost of pro- 
duction between England and the United States, which is 
proven by the fact that during the crisis of 1879 Pitts- 
burgh manufacturers were enabled to sell iron as low, or 
nearly so, as it was sold in England. Mr. John P. Verrie, 
representing the Philadelphia Iron and Steel Company, 
testified before the Tariff Commission, " that even to-day 
(1882) Pittsburgh is selling iron in the East at $10 a ton 
less than the same iron can be imported for. So that it 
is not a question of competition any further with foreign 
manufacturers ; it is a question of home competition, and 
I do not think it is a sectional issue ; I think it is a 
national issue. 

" Pittsburgh has very many natural advantages. She is 
located on a river which takes her products to the 
extreme West and Southwest at a very cheap rate ; she 
has the best coal at a cheap rate ; she has gas without any 
cost, and iron of the best quality, which enables her, in 
mixtures with our own inferior ores, to make as good iron 
as any manufacturers can make, and, with the cheap trans- 
portation which she has, she is enabled to transport iron 
to the Atlantic coast and deliver it cheaper than the Eng- 
lish or the New England manufacturers can. I therefore 
come here to ask protection for the eastern coast, although 
that may seem an anomaly. The Allegheny Mountains 



180 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

are a protection to the West as against eastern compe- 
tition. The West has an unlimited territory increasing 
all the time, while we have a very narrow belt on the 
Atlantic coast. Therefore I claim protection from Pitts- 
burgh V 

In Germany and Spain mineral lands belong to the 
government. The mine operator pays a royalty of two 
cents a ton in the former and three cents in the latter 
country. The American owner of ore lands, having 
purchased his land from the government at $1.25 per 
acre, exacts a royalty from the furnace-man, an interest 
upon a valuation of $10,000 per acre, much in the same 
fashion as our western lumber lords raise the value of 
their " stumpage." 

The cost of making pig-iron in England averages about 
$9.00 a ton. If the expenses of freight and commission 
of about $4.00 per ton is added, the American producer 
would be amply protected. If iron ore were put upon 
the free list the owners of ore land could not monop- 
olize the output, but would be compelled to accept a 
reasonable royalty. It must not be supposed, by any 
means, that the placing of iron ore upon the free list 
would cause the American iron market to be flooded with 
foreign ore ; it would only serve as a preventive against 
the inordinate charges of our iron and railroad lords. 

Our importations of iron ore have been about five 
hundred thousand tons annually, and if we had to import 
the nine million tons we need for consumption, there A\*ould 
not be vessels enough to carry it, and the freight rates 
would be prohibitive. The taking off of the tax on iron ore 
and on pig-iron would injure no interest, but would reduce 
the enormous profits now made by a few operators, while 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 181 

it would infuse a wonderful impetus to the various branches 
of our iron industries and start up new enterprises all over 
the country. The line of exports of our finished iron and 
steel goods, which are confined to-day to tools, engines, 
agricultural implements, house-builders' hardware and a 
few others, would immediately be extended to the more 
bulky articles of iron castings, coarsely-finished machin- 
ery, anvils, sledge-hammers, and other heavy products of 
our iron and steel industries. This increased demand of 
manufactured goods would naturally require more labor- 
ers, increase their wages, and by being steadily employed, 
their prosperity and consequently their contentment 
would be insured.* 

*"An active business experience of nearly forty years, thirty of which have 
been occupied in manufacturing, a fair actual acquaintance with, and knowl- 
edge of, the natural resources of this country and of most of the countries of 
Europe, an examination and comparison of the methods of the United States 
and European manufacturers and their respective facilities, advantages and 
disadvantages, has convinced me that the United States of America is fully 
capable of taking and maintaining an independent position as a manufacturing 
nation, and that her manufacturers, if left to fight their own battles against all 
comers, in a free-trade field, need no protection whatever against foreign man- 
ufacturers. 

" The fact that they are now able to sell, to some little extent, their manu- 
factured goods in neutral countries against the competition of the manufact- 
urers of Europe, is evidence of what they might do if relieved cf the incubus 
of an enormous customs tax on tlie foreign raw materials they use, and the corre- 
spondingly high price of American raw materials that they are compelled to use. 

" Under our tariff system, which is called ' the protective system,' an 
attempt is made from time to time to adjust the duty on the various articles of 
foreign manufacture to conform to the supposed necessities of the American 
manufacturer of similar articles, and as the duty on one article is raised to 
meet the necessities, or more likely to protect the ignorance and unthrif t of the 
American manufacturer, other manufacturers, imagining that the cost of 
making their own goods, or the cost of the living of themselves and their 
employes, has been increased by this advance in the tariff, combine and obtain 
an advance in the tariff on the classes of goods made by them. 

" Then the producers of the raw material think there is an opportunity for 
them to get the duty on their products raised, and so the figures hare climbed 
upward by a step here and another there, and then a good pull altogether, till 
we have built a tariff w all around us that not only keeps nearly all foreign raw 
material and manufactured goods out of the country, but keeps nearly all of 
our manufactured goods at home, and so circumscribes our market, dwarfs 



182 THE PROTECTIVE TAKIFF. 



COTTON AND WOOL. 



Next to iron, cotton and wool are unquestionably the 
most important crude materials entering into the manu- 
facture of finished articles. 

On the subject of cotton, w T hich is untaxed, there is 
only this to say, that in spite of the restrictive tariff which 
enhances the price of every article which enters into their 
business, some lines of American cotton goods are now 
successfully sold in China, and even in England, in com- 
petition with English " pauper "-made goods, and but for 
the voracious appetite of the manufacturing corporations 
of New England, which insist upon their pound of 
flesh, there is not a cotton fabric of any kind, made in 
this country, that would not successfully compete with 
England in the world's market. 

American commerce, and suppresses nearly all possible material for commerce, 
except the products of our soil that may be wanted abroad. Is it not time now 
that we all take a few long* steps downward — nearer terra firma — and get into 
a condition to have a foreign commerce? 

" This country is so rich in fertile lands, on which can be cheaply raised all 
kinds of produce necessary for the sustenance of man and beast, and all the 
raw materials necessary for clothing, it is so rich in the ores of all the use- 
ful metals and in the coal to convert them, that surely no product of the soil, 
nor of animals supported on the product of the soil, nor mineral ore, nor metal 
from the ore, can need the protection of a revenue tariff. These raw materials 
are placed by a kind Providence almost in the producer's hands, and fortunate 
should they esteem themselves who have, at so little cost, become the owners 
of the fertile lands and rich mines from which these raw materials are so easily 
obtained. 

"•The workingman certainly needs no protection on his labor, provided he 
can get his food and clothing and all the articles that enter into the subsistence 
of himself and family free from the high prices influenced or induced by a high 
tariff, and even if he does need protection he cannot get it, because if the 
laborer tries to make a ' corner ' in the price of labor, importations of foreign 
labor come in without limit and duty free. 

" With raw materials free of duty, labor free of duty, and freights and other 
expenses on a free-trade basis, the manufacturer will need no protective tariff, 
but, I am sure, cannot only hold all he ought to hold of the home market, but 
obtain a large share of the foreign markets." — Testimony of I. B. Sargent, home- 
manufacturer of cutlery, before United States Tariff Commission. 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 183 

This condition of affairs was well understood in the 
"trade" as early as 1882. While the western cotton 
manufacturers uniformly urged upon the United States 
Tariff Commission radical reductions in the duties of all 
lines of cotton goods, the New England corporations kept 
perfectly still, not one of their representatives appearing 
before the commission. This silence was maintained for 
the sole reason, that, while a large increase of duties could 
not be had, a controversy upon the subject before the 
Tariff Commission would furnish the public with informa- 
tion reserved for their own circle. This reticence on the 
part of so important a New England manufacturing 
interest caused Commissioner Kenner (ultra- protectionist), 
at the close of their labors uneasily to remark : 

" Can you tell me why it is that in regard to a great 
industry like the manufacture of cotton goods we have 
not heard from any of the manufacturers, or why they 
have not made any recommendations to us ? " 

As a matter of course, Mr. Kenner did not expect 
" recommendations " from that quarter, urging a reduc- 
tion of the existing exorbitant duties of from forty to 
seventy-five per cent, but what he undoubtedly thought 
he had a right to expect, was that the New England 
gentlemen would come before the commission, and in a 
general way warn them of the dangers following a reduc- 
tion of duties on their cotton fabrics. Such statements 
as, " What a calamity it would be for the operatives in 
our mills, now working at the munificent remuneration 
of $250 a year, to place them in competition with the 
pauper labor of Europe," would have justified the com- 
mission before the American people in their final action 
of raising the tariff on cotton goods ten per cent. 

In speaking of the western manufacturers, Mr. Ken- 



184 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

ner acknowledged, " that some of them would prefer to 
have no tariff on their goods at all ; that they had grown 
strong enough, and were now ready, like old England, if 
they could get their supplies where they could huy them 
cheapest, to have free trade with the world" " These 
statements," he says, "are- from people who seem to 
know about these matters, and they declare they are 
willing to accept a radical reduction in the tariff rates 
in all their lines. I speak now," Mr. Kenner continued, 
" of what is called cotton goods manufacturers ; a repre- 
sentative of a cotton factory in Cincinnati made a posi- 
tive assertion to that effect ; and when in St. Louis we 
had similar suggestions." 

The price of cotton goods has been kept within rea- 
sonable bounds, through competition between the home 
manufacturers, and therefore the American consumer is not 
oppressed in the same degree that he is in the price on 
woolen goods. Thus it will be seen, that the protective 
tariff injuriously affects our cotton industry in general ; 
that it is a useless impediment to its full development, 
and, to use the language of some of the manufacturers 
themselves, "they have grown strong enough and are 
now ready, like old England, if they could get their sup- 
plies where they could buy them cheapest, to have free 
trade with the world." 

WOOL. 

The existing tariff on foreign wool is undoubtedly 
the most monstrous contrivance to unjustly oppress the 
poor, and to cripple an important American industry, of 
all the protective enactments on the statute books. For 
the presumed benefit of a handful of wool-growers in the 
Eastern States, who persist in raising wool on land worth 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 185 

$100 per acre, the price of the clothing, bedding and 
undercloth of sixty millions of people is enhanced from 
forty to one hundred per cent; not that the increased 
price of the raw wool enhances the cost of the finished 
article directly, but owing to this unjust tax the wool 
manufacturer insists upon an enormous indemnifying duty 
on the foreign product.* 

It is a well-known fact that this country does not 
raise half the wool required for our own wants, and but 
for the large unoccupied areas of land in Texas and 
California, the per capita percentage, which has been 
estimated at seventy-six sheep to every hundred 

*"If you reduce the tariff on raw material, we could stand a reduction of 
duties. So long as we pay a high duty on raw material we must keep it on the 
manufactured article. The manufacturers are not strenuous for high duty 
if they could have cheaply the articles they work with ; but if you have to pay 
duties on all the articles you work with, you have to add your duties on to the 
price in order to make any profit to the manufacturer. This duty on wool has 
averaged about twelve and a half cents a pound for the last five or ten years, 
and on greasj^ wool at that. It prohibits the purchase of wool in Buenos Ayres, 
the only wool imported at the time the duty was put on ; but that is equal to 
about fifty cents on wool enough to make a pound of cloth ; and now if we 
have got to import that, and we have to, that regulates the price of our home 
wool, pretty much. Then of course our duty, in order to protect the manu- 
facturer, has got to be put on top of that ; and if he pays a duty on his indigo, 
oils, dye-stuffs, and everything of that kind, that must be considered, and the 
duty put on the price."— Chas. L. Harding, wool manufacturer, Boston, Mass., 
before the United States Senate Committee. 

"Woolen gotfds, protected by one hundred per cent, hardly enable their 
manufacturers to make sufficient profit to save them from bankruptcy. I know 
from my own experience that goods manufactured in Berlin undersell Amer- 
ican-made goods that are protected by one hundred per cent duty. These goods 
are made of cloth which costs in Berlin seventy-five cents, while the American 
article is sold for $1.75. The cloth is made of wool, which costs here thirty 
cents, while the Berlin manufacturer can use Australia wool, which costs one- 
half the price. This sufficiently explains why we cannot compete against 
Berlin-made goods. If, instead of raising the tariff on manufactured goods, 
we were to abolish the tariff on wool, we should be amply protected by a tariff 
of twenty or twenty-five per cent. 1 '— Manufacturer '8 Testimony before United 
States Tariff Commission. 

"We would advise the entire removal of the duties on raw material and 
dye stuffs, feeling that no change in the tariff would do more to increase our 
trade with foreign countries on textile fabrics and by opening up this outlet, 



186 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

inhabitants, would be much less even than that of Europe, 
where land is scarce and valuable, and is estimated at 
sixty-six sheep for every hundred inhabitants, while in 
South Africa the estimate is 890 sheep to every hun- 
dred ; Australia, 2,402, and the Argentine Republic, 2,580, 
these latter countries having an abundance of cheap 
lands. 

But the most instructive and significant feature in this 
land question, in relation to sheep husbandry, is contained 
in the statistics of the Agricultural Department, giving 
the respective decrease and increase of the number of 
sheep in the older and more newly settled lands of the 

tend to prevent the great and violent fluctuations in prices, which are so dis- 
astrous to a healthy industrial growth."— J. V. Farwell & Co., Chicago. 

"From the figures given you, which are absolutely correct, you will per- 
ceive that the American manufacturer is placed at once under great disadvant- 
age in procuring his raw material, in comparison with the German manufact- 
urer, on account of the duty of thirty cents per pound and the higher freight and 
custom-house charges, which compel him to invest a cash capital of $50,000 in 
his stock of wool, etc., and on which he must pay interest, insurance and taxes, 
against only $20,000, which are necessary to stock same with in Germany with 
the same quantity and quality of wool, etc. 

" Unless this duty on the raw material, l wool,' is taken off, the woolen man- 
ufacturer of America cannot compete with Europe, except in the lower grade 
of goods, where cheap machinery and comparatively little manual labor is 
used, because the tariff rates are the same on finer grades as on lower grades of 
goods. It is a fact, to which I need hardly call your attention, that the finest 
woolen goods are not and cannot be manufactured here at remunerative rates 
or at any profit, on account of the present tariff."— Alfred Dodge, Manufactured 
of Pearshill, New York, to Secretary Manning. 

" The first thing I would do is to equalize raw material, so that we could 
use it freely with a great many goods we do not make now. If we had free raw 
material, we should greatly improve the condition of our people."— George C. 
Richardson, Representing the Cotton and Woolmills at Lowell, Lawrence, Saco 
and Lewiston. 

" Raw material should be as free as possible. Why, in this country, be- 
fore all others, should it want any protection, with such an abundance of cheap 
and fertile land, great forests of timber, mines of coal and iron almost on the 
surface of the ground, and thus they can be and are made ready for the market 
at less cost than in any other country, and as our grain and cotton is cheaper 
and needs no protection, so should all our raw materials be." — !). I. Johnston, 
Cotton-Manufacturer at Cohoes, N. Y. 

"The effect of our tariff on wool is to give it to the foreign manufacturer 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 187 

United States. From them it appears that in 1867 there 
were about 30,000,000 sheep in the States of New York, 
Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. 
In 1877, after ten years of protection, this number of 
sheep had decreased to 14,500,000, or to less than one-half. 
(While it is not maintained that this decline of sheep- 
raising was caused by the tariff, it certainly shows the 
utter fallacy of the claim that protection favorably affects 
this industry.) During this same decade the number of 
sheep in Texas and California increased from less than 
1,000,000 to 11,500,000, all of which goes to show that, 
next to a favorable climate, an abundance of cheap lands 

at least forty per cent below the price in this country, and more than equivalent 
to the whole possible difference in the cost of labor. ''''—Managers of the Home Mills 
Company of Woolen-Manufactures. 

'The present duty is partly specific and partly ad valorem, the specific 
being- supposed to furnish an equivalent for the duty on the raw material, and 
the ad valorem for the other items referred to above. To make the duty 
entirely specific would either overtax the poor man's cloth or admit the rich 
man's broadcloth with a very small duty, neither of which things should be 
done. It will therefore be absolutely necessary to keep the tariff on woolens 
about where it is until such time as the western farmers learn by experience that 
the high tariff on ivool does not benefit them, and become ready to let in wool at a 
low tariff." — Ch as. Merriman, Woolen-Manufacturer, Providence, R. I. 

" The duty on wool does not help the wool-grower. The effect is to cause 
the importation of fabrics, whereas, if imported in the raw state, much domes- 
tic wool would be used mixed with the foreign, and our home growers would 
furnish at least half the wool for the goods now made wholly of foreign 
wools. 

" Free wool would also enable our idle mills to start up, and we could, after 
a short time, export some of our goods, making a market for our home-grown 
wools. 

" Free wool would raise prices abroad to a point that would make the cost 
here such as to enable our growers to compete favorably on the qualities 
adapted to their several localities. 

u It would give them a steady market, and tend to bring them in direct 
communication with the consumers, saving the profits of speculators. It is 
now seldom the case that the grower gets the advantage of an advance in 
market values. 

" It would be of more benefit to the wool-grower than to the manufacturer, 
as it would start up and increase the machinery, and make a demand for the 
wool. 

" It would give the grower what he most needs, customers and competition 



188 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

is the absolute requirement for the successful raising of 
sheep on an extended scale. 

"Consequently, it will be easily seen, that, as fast 
as our western States and territories grow in popula- 
tion thus fast the sheep are driven away. All our lands 
west of the Alleghanies are much too valuable for sheep- 
raismg, and there is just as much sense in the attempt of 
an Ohio farmer to raise sheep in competition with the 
shepherds on the La Plata, as would be the effort of a 
New-England agriculturist to raise wheat upon his little 
barren farm in competition with the Minnesota farmer 
on his extended lands of unexampled fertility. The lands 

for his wool. The home-grown will be used, so far as suitable, before the im- 
ported. Under the same conditions it will have the preference. 

44 It would not raise prices of the fabrics so as to interfere with full con- 
sumption by the laboring classes.' 1 — Wool-Manufacturers' Reply to Secretary 
Manning. 

44 Duties upon raw or partially manufactured materials that are consumed 
by our manufacturers, just so far as they raise the cost of such materials, evi- 
dently nullify the nominal protection by the tariff on the finished goods. Just 
so far they give the foreign competing manufacturer the advantage over our 
own, and raise the prices to the ultimate consumer of the goods, and so far lessen 
his ability to consume. 

4h Manufacturers have been induced to invest capital in various enterprises 
under the delusion that they had an advantage over the foreign manufacturer 
from a ' protective ' tariff, not knowing that the same tariff enhanced the cost 
of their products to an equal or greater extent. The materials for many woolen 
goods are thus increased in cost more than the duty on the finished fabrics, and 
the manufacture of such goods must result in failure when attempted in this 
country so soon as they experience the full effect of foreign competition. 

14 No manufacture, unless it be a monopoly, can remain for a long time 
unduly profitable in this country. Competition is sure to reduce profits after 
a short time to the average of other business requiring equal capital and 
skill. 

44 Our house has been in business for more than fifty years, and in all that 
time, as now, closely connected with and interested in various manufacturing 
operations. From our observation and experience we have learned that a high 
tariff is not of necessary protection, either to the laborers or to the employers* 
On the contrary, it is usually a snare and delusion. 

41 It is our firm belief that the labor of our country would be better protected 
and manufacturers be upon a much sounder basis with free raw material. A 
tariff that, keeping the present taxes upon spirits and tobacco, would raise such 
additional revenue as may be required for the needs of the government would, 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 189 

east of the Missouri are becoming more valuable from 
year to year, and it is only a matter of time when the 
sheep range of Texas will also have to make room for our 
regular diversified agricultural industries. 

Of all the " be it enacted," there is not one which so 
flagrantly and forcibly exposes the short-sightedness of the 
supposed beneficiaries, and the " unfathomable stupidity * 
of our average congressman as the protective enactments 
on wool. Don Quixote, the celebrated Spanish knight, in 
trying to stop his windmill, was but a miserable stumper 
when compared to the enlightened American statesman 
of to-day, who thus attempts to interfere with the 

in our opinion, be quite sufficient." —Beech & Co., Woolen-Manufacturers, Hart- 
ford, Conn. 

" In our opinion, the admission of raw material free of duty is a reform 
in the tariff that is imperatively demanded by the condition of manufacturing- 
interest, and would greatly aid in improving business generally. 11 — George 
Bullock, representing Worsted-Mills at Conshohocken, Pa. 

"If the present duty, or any duty, are to be levied on wool, then a cor- 
responding duty should be put upon woolen fabrics. 11 — Geo. W.Powell, Presi- 
dent Amazon Hosiery Company, Michigan City, Ind. 

" To my mind the first and all important step, to make a change in the 
tariff, should be the repeal of duties on the raw materials of manufacture. This 
country needs free wool, coal, ores, jute, hemp, lumber, salt and dye-stuffs. If 
this would increase the revenues, then duties on sugar and other necessaries can 
be decreased. 

" Taxes on raw materials are inconsistent even with the theory of protec- 
tion. They shut us out from all markets when our own is glutted by overpro- 
duction. The element of cost, by reason of the tax on raw material, kills us. 

"The taxes on the articles named are distinctly disadvantageous to the 
people of Philadelphia, eastern Pennsylvania and adjacent States. The taxes 
on iron ore and coal operate as a means of perpetuating discriminations against 
this city in the freight charges by the railroads. The government gets from 
these but a small revenue, but the exactions of the railroad companies amount 
to millions a year. 11 — Wm. Singerly, of Philadelphia. 

" It is plain to me, as it has been expressed in your pamphlet, that the duty 
on wool handicaps the American woolen-manufacturers ; therefore, being as you 
say the best judges of their own interests, why not carry out the principle to the 
end and say, we are opposed to any duty on wool, and ask for its abolishment ? 
Act consistently, and do what your own intelligence tells you to be right. Now, 
there is another thing which I have noticed for some months back, and that is, 
that from one to three thousand cases of manufactured cotton goods have been 
shipped weekly to the ports of London, Liverpool and Glasgow. How is it that 



190 THE PROTECTIVE TABIEP. 

immutable laws of exchange. It is of no consequence 
to him that the climate, the soil, the price of land and 
of labor in Ohio and Pennsylvania are not adapted for 
wool-raising on a grand scale, and that, to overcome these 
unfavorable conditions, great sacrifices have to be made. 
He seems to contemplate with supreme indifference this 
fact, as well as, the fact that the sixty million inhabit- 
ants of the United States might the more comfortably 
clothe themselves with one-half the money they now pay, 
if they were permitted to buy the wool they need where 
the soil and climate are favorable to wool-raising, 
and where land and labor is cheap. The idea does not 

the American cotton-manufacturer can export his products to an English mark- 
et and sell at a profit ? And they must do it, or they would quit sending them. 
Does not this same American cotton manufacturer have to compete in the same 
American labor market from which the American woolen-manufacturer has to 
get his supply of labor, and also the American farmer has to get his labor with 
which he has to raise his wheat, corn, tobacco, pork, beef, dairy products, and 
export them to a foreign market, and sell in competition with the half-civilized 
labor of the Eastern world or the pauper labor of Europe, even the serf labor of 
Russia, which, although not serfs to-day, I am told, are not much better off ? 
When the American cotton-manufacturer can sell his products in the English 
markets in competition with the English pauper labor, and pay the high Ameri- 
can price for labor to produce his products, does he want any protection ? Sup- 
pose, for illustration, that the American woolen-manufacturer could go into the 
cheapest wool-markets of the world, just the same as the American cotton-man- 
ufacturer gets his cotton as cheap as any manufacturer, could not the Ameri- 
can woolen manufacturer produce equally cheap woolen goods ? If not, will 
you please give me the reason why ? Now let us take the specific duty on wool, 
which you say must be added to the price of American woolen goods to over- 
come the specific duty now collected on wool. We will put it at forty cents, 
while the pamphlet says it will require forty-six and three-quarters cents 
per pound to put the American manufacturer on an equal footing with the 
European manufacturer. The census report of 1880 puts the woolen product 
of our country at something over $200,000,000 per annum. While present at a 
banquet given by the National Association of Woolen-Manufacturers some 
few years back at the Continental Hotel, in Philadelphia, the president of the 
association, in giving an account of the woolen-manufacturing interests of 
America, said the products per annum at that time were about $293,000,000. 
Now, let us take the census report and say it is correct of $200,000,000, and say 
the manufactured goods cost $1.50 per pound (which is a very high average of 
American-manufactured woolens), it would make about 134,000,000 pounds, 
and add to it the specific duty of forty cents per pound. This will adcj to the 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 191 

seem to find a lodgment in his shallow head, that the 
fellows who raise the cheap wool of Australia, South 
America and South Africa might be in need of some of 
our manufactured goods, or, if not in need now, might be 
induced, by and by, to exchange with us for our products 
their cheap wool (for which they have no earthly use). 
This condition of things has been aptly illustrated by Mr. 
Edward Atkinson, the great statistician, in his pamphlet 
on the " Collection of Kevenue." 

" The Kaffir of South Africa was formerly a savage 
warrior ; he is now a peaceful shepherd in whom some of 
the desires of civilized life have been developed. How 

cost of the American woolen-goods product about $54,000,000. In addition to 
this we import annually, say $50,000,000 worth of wool and woolens, the duties 
on which, at an average of say seventy -five per cent, would be $37,500,000. The 
pamphlet claims that the woolen-manufacturer is entitled to an ad valorem duty 
of thirty-five per cent to overcome the cheap pauper labor put into the manu- 
facture of woolen goods in Europe. Now, this ad valorem duty will add to 
the selling price of the $300,000,000 worth of American-manufactured woolens 
another $50,000,000. If we take the $54,000,000 of specific duty added to the 
woolen goods product of America and say two-thirds of the duties collected on 
imported wools and woolens, we will find what it costs the American consumers 
of woolen goods to protect the handful of persons called wool-growers. The 
two items will amount to about $95,000,000, or very nearly $2 each for every 
man, woman and child in the United States in 1880. Now, when you add the 
ad valorem duty, or what it adds to the cost of all woolen goods consumed in 
the United States, it will make another $70,000,000, or when all the exactions that 
are taken from the consumers of woolens in the United States, over $150,000,000, 
or about $3 each for every individual in our country. Now, there are engaged 
in the woolen and worsted interests of the United States about 120,000 persons of 
all ages and sexes ; these, along with a probably much less number of persons 
called wool-growers, are those who extract from the pockets of the 9,000,000 farm- 
ers and the many other millions of tradesmen, workingmen, professional 
men and men engaged in transportation who go to make the grand aggregate 
of the American people, who are taxed as above to protect less than a quarter 
of a million people engaged in wool-growing and woolen-manufacturing. How 
long would the American citizen stand such a tax for such a purpose were it a 
direct tax ? And yet they just as surely pay it as though the tax-gatherer came 
around and collected it directly. Your circular letter says: 'The object for 
which the pamphlet was written, viz., preserving the foundation rock of our 
prosperity as wool-manufacturers, the present woolen tariff.'' If it is the foun- 
dation rock it must be a very slippery one, and we as woolen-manufacturers occa- 
sionally get off the rock and out into deep water, and some occasionally get 



192 THE PEOTECTIVE TARIFF. 

has this come about ? By the desire of the civilized men 
of Europe and America for a kind of wool which the 
climate and soil of South Africa will produce. It 
happens that, upon the hills of South Africa, wool can be 
raised with no labor except that of the shepherd to tend 
the sheep and the annual shearing, but the wool is abso- 
lutely useless in that climate. On the other hand, wheat, 
tobacco, butter, cheese, iron- ware and tools cannot be 
raised or made there at all. What has happened from 
these conditions ? The first settlers tempted the Kaffirs 
to become shepherds by offering them good bread, butter, 
cheese, iron and other luxuries hitherto unknown to them, 
but yet real necessities for the full development of the 
manhood in them. Europe and America took their wool 
and gave them the wheat. 

" But now the United States says, or rather Ohio says, 
We can raise all this wool. True ; but instead of expend- 
ing only the labor of a Kaffir, who can do nothing else, 
we must build great barns to protect our sheep in our 
cold winter, we must employ farmers to raise hay and 
roots to feed them, and we must expend two days' labor 
of a civilized man, where the half -civilized Kaffir need 
expend but one ; yet we ought to be protected in our 

drowned, and the great mass at times make very narrow escapes. Let any per- 
son running" a woolen-mill from 1873 to 1877 ask himself why it was during- that 
time that at least one-third of the woolen-machinery of the country was idle ; 
and it was the same with every other interest at that time. It was said that 
there was a million of men tramping from one end of the country to the other, 
willing to work, but could find none to do. Where was the rock foundation at 
that time ? Let us look at a later date, from 1883 to 1885. Have we not wit- 
nessed a similar state of things? What had become of the rock of prosperity at 
this time? Why were so many woolen-mills idle? Why was the woolen-mill 
bought by Mr. Ayres in Massachusetts for $225,000, which was said to have cost 
over a million of dollars? What had become of its capital? That mill must 
certainly have gotten off the foundation rock of prosperity."— Wm. Dean, 
Woolen-Manufacturer, Newark, Del., reply to National Association of Wool-Man- 
ufacturers. 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 193 

labor ; we, the educated, civilized men of Ohio and Ver- 
mont and Massachusetts need to be protected against the 
poor, half-civilized creature — we are afraid of him. God 
has given him more sunshine' than us, and if he advances 
we shall be degraded. Suppose Europe were equally 
afraid of the poor Kaffir, and protected itself against his 
wool ; what would become of it ? 

" No one would give him wheat or any commodity for 
it ; he cannot eat or wear it, and it is the only thing he 
can raise. If he cannot sell it he must cease work, cease 
progress, relapse into barbarism — all the missionaries in 
creation couldn't save him ; yet, if protection against the 
Kaffirs wool is good for America it is good for Europe, 
and ought to be adopted." 

"Which is the greater "Kaffir" of the two, the native 
of South Africa, who is trying to adapt himself to modern 
progress and civilization, or the American congressman ? 

But how about the Ohio wool-grower ? 

Mr. Atkinson thus answers the question : " Twenty 
cents' worth of wheat will buy of the Kaffir a pound of 
wool. The Ohio farmer can furnish twenty cents' worth 
of wheat, we will say, by half an hour's labor; but a 
pound of wool will cost him a whole hour's labor, or forty 
cents. 

a Now, if you put a revenue duty of fifteen cents on 
the wool raised by the Kaffir, it will still come, as its 
total cost in the United States will still be only thirty-five 
cents. The Ohio farmer will still make wheat to exchange 
for it, only we shall get less wool for a bushel of wheat ; but 
if you impose a duty which involves any incidental pro- 
tection or any other kind of protection, it must be over 
twenty cents, so as to raise the cost of the Kaffir wool to 
over forty cents. Suppose you put the duty at twenty- 



194 THE PkoTECtlVE TAftM'. 

five cents, then the Ohio farmer is protected, and carl 
make it for less than its cost plus the duty ; the Ohio 
farmer gives up raising wheat, but expends twice the 
labor on wool ; commerce with the Kaffir ceases ; woolen 
cloths cost double ; the government has no revenue ; the 
civilized man has put his two hours' labor against the 
Kaffir's one, and by means of protection has won the 
game ; the Kaffir relapses into barbarism, and that is the 
end of it ; but is the civilized man any better off than he 
was before ? He has now to pay a direct tax for the 
support of the government and has less time to work it 
out than he had before." 

And is it not a matter of easy calculation, that for 
every dollar the farmer profits by this protection on his 
wool, he pays $2 in the increased price of his clothing, 
farming utensils and household furniture, on account 
of the tariff, and that, consequently, he is a loser in 
the end ? 

The import duty on wool is divided into 

Class I. Clothing-wool, ten cents per pound, if the 
value is thirty-two cents or less, and twelve cents per 
pound, if the value exceeds thirty-two cents. In addition, 
ten per cent on its value. 

Class II. Fine combing-wool, and alpaca and goat's 
hair are taxed in the same ratio as the above. 

Class III. Known as carpet wool, two and one-half 
cents per pound, if the value is twelve cents a pound, or 
less, and five cents a pound if the value exceeds twelve 
cents. 

The duty on washed clothing - wool is doubled and 
is trebled on scoured wool. This duty is almost prohib- 
itive, and not only excludes our manufacturers from 
foreign markets, but actually doubles the price of the bet- 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANIJFACTUBEBS. 195 

ter kind of clothing to the American consumer. This 
class of wool is too expensive to be used in the manufact- 
ure of the cheaper class of goods, and, in order to supply 
the enormous demand for this kind of clothing, our man- 
ufacturers are compelled to resort to so-called " substi- 
tutes ; a respectable expression for the word " shoddy." 

" Shoddy " is made from old rags, of which large quan- 
tities are imported. All our ready-made clothing, the 
principal wearing apparel of the American farmer and 
working-man, is wholly or partially manufactured out of 
this miserable stuff. 

A year ago, The Breeders Gazette of this city, one of 
the leading agricultural papers of the country, contained 
the following lucid expose of this outrageous swindle : 

" Shoddy is used to the extent of more than one-third 
of the weight of the wool clip of the United States. But 
how can this be avoided ? There is not more than half 
enough clothing- wool raised in the United States for mak- 
ing the goods consumed. The other half must be procured 
elsewhere, or half the present wear must be of old clothes 
without being manufactured. Under the present tariff, 
without the use of these substitutes, the clothing of the 
poorer classes and those of moderate means would cost 
fully double present prices. The manufacturer must use 
such material as he can get for making the fabrics his 
customers require. He would prefer to use all clean wool. 
It would be much easier to make his goods with this than 
with any other material. But the tariff says you shall not 
have the wool without you pay fifty to one hundred per 
cent more for it than it costs your competitors in other 
countries. If you use shoddy or other substitutes, you can 
have the same protection, by the specific duty of thirty-five 
cents per pound on the goods, as if you use the finest silk 



I 



196 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

and wool. In one case the material in a pound of goods may 
not cost more than twenty cents, and in some others the 
fine wool alone costs $1.25, and the silk nearly fifty cents 
additional for a pound of the finished goods. The substi- 
tutes you can buy here in almost any quantity, or import 
by paying ten cents duty. The fine wool you must 
import in some shape, and pay for duty alone much more 
than the specific duty on the goods. The laws of trade, 
working under the tariff, govern the shape in which the 
material is imported, and these favor the use of shoddy 
in our home manufactures. In other words there is a 
premium of thirty-five cents per pound offered by the 
tariff for the use of shoddy and other substitutes that we 
can buy at or below the prices they cost in foreign coun- 
tries, and there is a tax, more or less heavy, according to 
the quality, upon the pure wool that must be imported if 
the goods are to be made in this country, over and above 
the so-called compensating duty on the foreign goods. 
These are plain, naked facts that anyone can substan- 
tiate by going to the proper sources for information. It 
is unfortunate that this is not more readily available, and 
that those who are called upon to vote on these questions 
do not have the time and disposition to learn the exact 
truth." 

What do the farmers and working-men say to this ? 

Shades of the fathers, what a sight to behold ! Our 
farmers of the West, who are supplying these " fellows 
over the water" with over $600,000,000 worth of cereals 
and provisions annually, standing about in brand-new 
suits, manufactured out of the cast-off woolen clothing 
of the despised "European pauper"! To be sure, this 
miserable stuff is " cheap," but if poor quality and 
wear is considered, it is dear at any price. 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 197 



L- 



The other day I met the father of three little boys, 
whose daily earnings average about $1.75 per day. After 
pinching his household down to the bare necessaries of 
life, he managed to save $20 with which he hoped to 
clothe his boys for the winter. Going to one of the / 
large ready-made-clothing houses down town, he was 
offered three suits at $6.50 each, which he considered 
very reasonable. It was to be an agreeable surprise to 
the boys and his wife. The latter, having had some 
experience in the clothing line, examined the yarn of 
which the suits were made, w r hen, casting a despairing 
glance at the father and laying the bundle upon the 
table, she exclaimed : " Old man, you have been swindled ; 
this is the purest shoddy and will not last the boys a ^j 
month." " That is the best they had in the store," was / 
the reply, " and there is no use in trying to do better 
anywhere else." 

But this poor man's experience is probably the experi- 
ence of many of my readers ; the prophecy of that man's 
wife, " that the boys' suits would not last a month," will __ , 
no doubt be fully realized. ~y 

This is the kind of clothing the great mass of the 
American people are compelled to purchase, and this is the 
kind of cheapness which Mr. Randall said, in his recent 
speech at Atlanta, "has been vouchsafed us hy protection 
on wool." 

But the utter recklessness with which this tariff legis- 
lation is carried on is strikingly exemplified by the duty 
on wools of the the third class, or # carpet wools. 

There is no wool of this class worth mentioning raised 
in the United States, and over ninety per cent of all that is 
used by our manufacturers is imported. This fact was 
brought before the Tariff Commission by every manu- 



198 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

facturer of woolen goods, and even by the secretary of 
the National Association of Wool-Growers.* 

These remonstrances notwithstanding, and in spite 
of these requests to have this class of wool put upon the 
free list, the commission, with the characteristic obstin- 
acy of our rock-rooted protectionists, made a reduction 
of but half a cent on a pound. 

The duty on this class of wool benefits no interest 
whatever, but greatly injures the manufacturer of carpets, 
who might, otherwise, successfully compete with the Euro- 
pean carpet-weaver in foreign markets. This fact is 
evidenced by the testimony of Mr. James Dobson, an 
extensive carpet manufacturer of Philadelphia, who says : 
" That carpets of the same quality of goods are, practically , 
as cheap here as in England" 

* We do not grow these wools, not because we cannot produce them, but 
because it is unprofitable. I have seen beautiful carpet wools from Colorado, 
grown from descendants of the Mexican Churros, with fiber as white as 
mohair. We do not grow these wools for the very simple reason that it is more 
profitable for the farmer to grow something else. Dr. Randall used to say : 
" The farmer will not grow rye when he can grow wheat." I pointed out to an 
experienced wool-grower a picture of some Cheviot sheep in my office, and said 
to him : " Why don't you try that race of sheep ? They are profitable in Scot- 
land." His answer was, "It will cost me no more to grow Leicesters or 
Cotswolds, and their wool and carcasses are worth twice as much." The Churro 
sheep of Colorado, which I spoke of, will produce but two or three pounds 
of wool, while, improved by a Merino cross, the product in wool is four or five 
pounds. The grower is all the time doing his best to breed away from carpet 
wools ; as a consequence he wants no duty to encourage him to grow these 
wools. He knows that under no amount of protection would the cultivation of 
these wools be profitable.— Secretary National Association of Wool-Growers. 

For the above reasons we request that carpet wools be put on the free list. We 
believe that this will be in the interest of all parties, wool growers, wool-manu- 
facturers and consumers, and that it is for the general interest of the whole 
country that at least all raw materials that do not compete with home products, 
and which enter into important established industries, should be admitted free, 
in order that such industries may receive the fullest practicable development, 
and thus in turn contribute in a thousand direct and indirect ways to the con- 
sumption of articles of American growth and manufacture.— Testimony of Mr. 
Wm. Whitman, representing the National Association of Wool- Growers, before 
the Tariff Commission* 






EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 199 

What has been said of the effect of this tax upon the 
raw material of the iron, steel, cotton and wool industries 
is applicable to almost every other branch of manufacture 
and trade in the country. 

The hat industry, for instance, is hampered by an 
average tax of thirty-five per cent upon its raw material, 
very little of which is made in this country. 

The boot and shoe manufacturers are crippled with a 
tax of twenty-five per cent upon the calf skins they use. 

The manufacturers of all kinds of copper-ware are 
compelled to pay a tax of four cents per pound to the 
wealthy copper-mine owners, while these same owners 
sell the same article in England for three cents per 
pound less. 

The manufacturers of lead pipes and of other articles 
of lead, pay to the lead-mine operator the enormous 
tribute of two cents on every pound used. 

Nickel, which enters largely into the manufacture of 
plated goods, is loaded down with the outrageous duty of 
thirty cents per pound. 

From testimony given before the Tariff Commission, it 
appears that almost the entire production of nickel in this 
country is from one mine in Pennsylvania, and I am told 
that the effect of the duty on nickel, which is practically 
a prohibitory one, it being so large as to prevent the prof- 
itable importation of nickel at all, has been to yield 
an enormous profit to the producer of this article in Penn- 
sylvania, he being the largest producer in America. 
The nickel manufacturers state that the moment the duty 
was increased to its present figure, without any increase 
in the cost of production at all, without any increase in 
wages, without any increase in invested capital, there was 
an immediate doubling of the price per pound to the 



200 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

nickel-plater, and that that price has been maintained, and 
to some extent increased, since that time. This injustice 
has been carried to such an extent that the Meriden Bri- 
tannia Company, which is one of the largest consumers of 
nickel in this country, has been obliged to establish a 
factory in Canada in order to compete for the foreign 
market. 

The price of nickel in this countrjr is such, owing to 
the existing tariff, that our goods cannot be profitably ex- 
ported, and with all our skilled laborers and understand- 
ing of the business (and we make the best plated goods 
that are made in the world), we cannot sell them in Eng- 
land, in South America, or on the continent of Europe, 
because we have to pay so much for our raw material 

The manufacturer of jute goods must pay a duty of 
$15 a ton, and twenty per cent on its value. Hardly any 
jute is raised in this country, and although America con- 
sumes more jute goods than any other country in the 
world, owing to the exorbitant tax on the raw material, it 
makes but one forty-second of the production of England. 

But the tax which has inflicted the most irreparable 
injury upon the whole country is the duty on the raw mate- 
rials which enter into the construction of a ship. It 
amounts to forty-three per cent on the average. While the 
United States once stood at the head of the ship-building 
nations of the world, that tax has closed our ship-yards, 
thrown sixty thousand American sailors out of employ- 
ment, or compelled them to navigate foreign ships, and 
has driven the American flag from the high seas.* 

* Take off the tariff on Nova Scotia coal and iron ore, and there is no rea- 
son why all the coast of New England, from Machiasto Massachusetts Bay, and 
from Massachusetts Bay to Long Island Sound and New York, should not be 
lined with furnaces and rolling-mills. Take off the tax on Nova Scotia coal 
and ore, and Maine, which, under the " keep on the tax policy," is the one and 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 201 

Consequently, the damage inflicted upon the country 
by our tax on raw materials must be understood to be 
properly appreciated. It is a two-edged sword which 
cuts both in buying and in selling. If we refuse to 
take in pay the produce of people who are in want of 
manufactured goods, we simply make it impossible for 
that people to trade with us. Our trade with Australia 
is a case in point. We are very much in need of 
plenty of cheap wool. But our government prohibits our 
merchants from trading with the people of Australia 
upon an equitable basis, by placing an exorbitant tax 
upon their wool, in consequence of which, instead of 
buying from us the manufactured articles they need, 
they buy from England, France and Germany, all of 
which allow their wool to come in free. 

This condition of affairs has been fully described by 
Consul Griffith, at Sidney, Australia, in the following let- 
ter to the State Department : 

" The people here complain that it is not just to expect 
them to purchase goods and wares from the United States 
when wool, the chief product of Australia, is almost 
excluded from the United States market on account of 
protective duties. I believe, however, if a better knowl- 
edge of the character of the wools grown here existed 
in the United States the trade would be much larger 
than it is. 

only state in the union that is decreasing in population, which is falling behind- 
hand in manufactures and in the disbursement of wages to its people, station- 
ary in her agriculture, increasing in the number of her illiterates and crim- 
inals, paying her female school-teachers less than is paid by the emancipated 
slaves of Alabama and South Carolina, and is witnessing the steady progress 
to annihilation of her former great special industry of wooden shipbuilding; 
take off the taxes, I say, and Maine might build iron ships for the world, and 
place upon her deserted harbors industrial establishments that would more than 
rival those now existing in Scotland upon the Clyde, and in Germany upon tM 
Weser." —David A. Wells, Ex.-U, S, Tax Commissioner. 



202 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

" The Australasian wools best suited for the United 
States market are chiefly of light, sound, shafty fleece. 
These wools are usually produced in the south and south- 
eastern Riverina districts, in this colony, and in the upper 
Murray district in Victoria. Australasian wools are, as a 
rule, soft-handling, fine-haired and silky. These proper- 
ties are mainly due to climatic influences, although the 
natural pasturage of the interior has without doubt 
assisted in developing these characteristics. Some of the 
high grades of wool grown in the United States compare 
very favorably with Australasian wools, but, as a rule, 
the American wools are harsher and are wanting in elas- 
ticity and fitting properties. 

" The modification of the present duties on Austral- 
asian wools would undoubtedly give a great impetus to 
the commerce of both countries. The United States 
would then draw more largely than ever on the colonies 
for all wools suitable for fine and superfine cloth and 
ladies' dress goods. There is no question about the Amer- 
ican manufacturers being able to produce fine cloths and 
ladies' dress goods of equal quality and finish to those of 
the most celebrated mills of Europe, and yet, on account 
of the duty on Australasian wool the American merchants 
are obliged to import the great bulk of these articles from 
England, France and Belgium. 

"In the event of the reduction of the duties on Aus- 
tralasian wools, or of the admission of that class of wools 
peculiar to this country, and not grown in the United 
States, the American mill-owner would soon be in a 
position not only to undersell in his own market all 
woolen fabrics of a foreign make, but to compete success- 
fully with other woolen-manufacturing countries in the 
various markets of the world. At the same time the 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 203 

American flockmaster would not experience any loss by 
the change in the tariff, as the wools imported would be 
of a different quality from those which he is able to 
produce. The advantages resulting from such a change 
would also be very great to Australasia, for there would 
then be a keener competition than at present for those 
classes of wool especially adapted to the American 
markets." 

Consequently, as before stated, our manufacturing 
capacities far exceed the requirements of the home 
market, and as long as production is confined to the com- 
paratively narrow limits of the United States, overpro- 
duction, auction and sheriff sales, the closing of factories 
and the enforced idleness of labor, with all its heart-rend- 
ing miseries, are the disastrous results. An export tax 
upon cotton and cereals would not be more unjust or 
more impolitic than the import tax upon the raw material 
of our manufacturers. Imagine for an instant the dire 
consequences following such a suicidal policy. Suppose 
our government should levy an export tax of say twenty- 
five per cent upon these agricultural products, which 
would close the foreign markets to the surplus product of 
our farmers and planters, how many years would it re- 
quire to shut up every factory in the country and bring 
ruin and desolation to every household in the land? 

Free raw-material would put three-fourths of our 
manufacturers upon a level with their foreign com- 
petitors in the markets of the w T orld, increase the demand 
for their products and insure permanent and lucrative 
employment to their operatives. 

But, if our manufacturers were thus relieved, as a 
matter of justice to the consumer, an indemnifying re- 
duction of taxes on the finished articles ought to follow, 



204 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 



MONOPOLY. 

The amazing claim set up by protectionists, that their 
system has the effect of lowering the price " of the man- 
ufactured article, reminds one of the Irishman's reply to 
his employer when told, if he did not want his wages re- 
duced to fifty cents a day, he had better vote for the pro- 
tectionist candidate for Congress. 

" Boss," said he, u if yez indade belaved that, yez'd re- 
quoir iv'ry mither's son of us to vote t'other way." 

So, if the protectionists really believed protection had 
the effect of lowering prices, they would fight the system 
to a man. 

This, however, is but one of their many pretenses orig- 
inated to bolster up an iniquitous system ; in other words 
to sugar-coat the pill. 

Its advocates are perfectly well aware of the fact that 
the causes for this phenomena of price reduction are to 
be found in the immutable laws of human progress, in 
the ingenuity and perseverance of man, who is con- 
stantly at work to invent some new contrivance to im- 
prove and apply new machinery, and to adopt more 
modern methods of manufacture, whereby time may be 
saved, the expenses of production lessened, and the 
efficiency of labor increased. 

This progressive movement by which prices are lowered 
is going on in Old Europe, where competition is excess- 
ive, at a more rapid rate than here, and it is owing to 
this fact alone that our tariff, however exorbitant, is insuf- 
ficient to keep out foreign goods. 

The restrictive policy of the government, which con- 
fines our manufacturers to the home supply, is daily 
bringing us nearer to the conditions prevailing in the Old 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 205 

World. The products of our mines and factories being 
largely in excess of our requirements, the small and finan- 
cially weaker concerns have had either to succumb to 
the pressure -or be absorbed by the more wealthy and 
powerful corporations. 

But these disastrous results, notwithstanding this cut- 
throat competition in the wild race for the mastery in the 
home supply, continue unabated, and possibly with 
more tenacity. What formerly has been but a cat-and- 
dog fight has now become one between giants. 

This relentless war of competition, having lasted for 
years, is the only cause of the ruinous reduction in prices, 
and there is no doubt but that the statement of the well- 
known statistician, Mr. Atkinson, is correct, that at the 
present time the profits of the manufacturers on the 
average do not exceed five per cent of the capital 
invested. 

Protection has seen its best days, and instead of 
longer being a benefit to the manufacturers it is a loss to 
a majority of them. Prof. Tausig, of Harvard Uni- 
versity, truthfully says: "The manufacturer does not, on 
account of this import tax, obtain exceptional profits in 
the production of these protected articles. It is true that 
in some cases of monopoly he may permanently make 
high profits. But in many cases he fails to do so. It 
may cost more, from inherent and natural causes, to make 
the protected article at home than it costs to make it 
abroad. In this case — the most frequent — the home 
producer gets higher prices in consequence of the duty, but 
he does not make correspondingly high profits. The tax 
on the consumer here represents simply the greater cost, 
the inherent natural disadvantage of making the com- 
modity at home. It represents a useless diversion of na- 



206 THE PROTECTIVE TAffcM. 

tional industry. Thus a commodity is made at home which 
can be more cheaply bought abroad, and nobody is ben- 
efited by the tax imposed upon the consumer." 

The system is now become simply one 'of waste and 
of reciprocal plunder. The manufacturers are eating 
each other up, or, rather, steal from each other in the 
fashion of the monkeys in Exeter Exchange, London, as 
described by an English writer : 

" These monkeys used to be confined in a row of nar- 
row cages, each of which had a pan for his food. "When 
all the monkeys were supplied with their suppers, it was 
observed that scarcely anyone of them ate from his own 
pan. Each thrust his arm through the bars and robbed 
his right and left-hand neighbor. Half of what was so 
seized was spilt and lost in the conveyance to his own 
mouth, and while one monkey was thus unprofitably en- 
gaged in plundering some other monkey, his own pan 
was exposed to a similar depredation by his friend in 
the rear." 

This illustration of mingled knavery and absurdity 
is shockingly human, and fairly shows that half of what 
the manufacturers seize from each other is lost in the 
" shuffle." 

They understand that the only remedy for this condi- 
tion of affairs consists in a mutual understanding that 
their interests are identical, and this furnishes the solu- 
tion to the great mysterious movement now in progress, 
to organize every important branch of industry in the 
United States into a "pool" or a " trust," * with a view 

* Every one knows about the thirty-million-dollar steel combination, which 
has not kept the price of rails from declining from $166 a ton in 1867 to $32 a ton 
in 1884, but during this decline has kept the price of rails — that is the price of 
transportation, that is the price of everything — higher in this country than any- 
where else. Chairman Morrison of the Committee of Ways and Means is a wit- 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION OlSf MANUFACTURERS. 207 

of curtailing production and maintaining prices, and 
thus, if possible, to avert the impending industrial 
crash. ' 

To those who have but superficially considered the 
effect of the protective system, it may seem a rash 
statement to make, that the government of the United 
States is primarily responsible for this prevailing mo- 
nopoly mania with which the country is now afflicted. 

It is not capital that creates monopolies, it is the 
absence of competition, and, as long as competition is 
not debarred, there need be no apprehension from con- 
centrated capital. But competition being destroyed by 

ness to the fact that the chimneys of the Vulcan Mill at St. Louis stood smokeless 
for years, and meanwhile its owners received a subsidy reported at $400,000 
a year from the other mills of the combination for not making rails, with, 
however, no payment to its men for not working". The u Age of Steel " startled 
the country last January by the statement that a monster pool was to be formed 
of all our pig-iron manufacturers. The country was to be divided into six dis- 
tricts. As many furnaces were to be put out of blast as were necessary to prevent 
us from having too much iron, and these idle furnaces were to share, like the 
Vulcan Steel Mill, the profits of those that ran. This has not yet proved to be 
history, but it may turn out to have been prophecy. 

There are too many nails for the nail-makers, though no such complaint has 
been heard from the house-builders. There is a nail association, which at the 
beginning of the year advanced prices ten cents a keg. Last November it 
ordered a suspension of the nail machines for five weeks, to the great distress of 
eight thousand workmen, who are also machines — self-feeders. "We hope," 
said the nail-men, according to a Pittsburgh dispatch of December 29, 1882, "to 
show consumers that we can not only control production, but that we can do so 
unanimously, and at the very time when nails are the least wanted." On April 
9, of this year, the nail manufacturers of the West met again at Pittsburgh, 
and adopted the most modern form of pool, with managers having full powers 
to regulate prices and restrict production. " An early advance of prices may 
be expected," we are told. Every mill in the West is in the pool. Nail-buyers 
are not allowed to converse with nail-makers. All business must be done through 
the board of control. 

There is too much barbed wire for the wire manufacturers, though not for the 
farmers, and a pool, under the " entire control " of eleven directors, has, within 
a few weeks, been formed, in which are enrolled all the chief manufacturers. 
Its members met in March, in St. Louis, and advanced prices. They met again 
in Chicago, April 4, and advanced prices ten per cent, and adjourned to meet 
in thirty days for the purpose of making another advance. This combination 
cuts off competition at both ends. It confederates the makers, so that they 



208 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

the action of the government in taxing the foreign article, 
thereby preventing its importation, and, consequently, 
conferring upon the home manufacturer of a like com- 
modity a monopoly of the home market, there is no 
escape from this dilemma. It may not have been the 
intention of our legislators to create these pools and trusts, 
but it is the logical effect of this one-sided legislation, 
and all attempts to charge capital with the responsibility 
are absolutely frivolous. 

A great deal of misleading clap-trap is heard about 
the accumulation and concentration of capital. The 
industrial progress of the age, the application of steam 

shall not sell in competition with each other, and it buys all its raw material 
through one purchasing agent, so that its members do not buy in competition. 

Thirteen concerns making wrought-iron pipes in this country met in Decem- 
ber last to unite under the very appropriate name of the Empire Iron Company. 
Each was to deposit $20,000 as security that he would adhere to rules to prevent 
the calamity of too much iron pipe. One feature of the pool was that it pro- 
posed to keep men on guard at each mill, to keep account of the pipe made and 
shipped ; and these superintendents were to be moved around from one mill to 
another at least every eight weeks. 

April 1, 18S2, when the rest of us were lost in the reckless gayety of All Fools' 
Day, forty-one tack manufacturers found out there were too many tacks, and 
formed the "Central Manufacturing Company of Boston, 1 ' with $3,000,000 
capital. The tack mills in the combination run about three days in the week. 
When this combination, a few weeks ago, silenced a Pittsburgh rival by bujang 
him out, they did not remove the machinery. The dead chimneys and idle 
machines will discourage new men from starting another factory, or can be run 
to ruin them if they are not to be discouraged in any other way. The first fruits 
of the tax-pool were an increase of prices, to twice what they had been. 

And again : 

14 When President G owin, of the Reading Railroad, was defending that com- 
pany in 1875 before a committee of the Pennsylvania legislature, for having 
taken part in the combination of the coal companies to cure the evil of " too 
much coal" by putting up the price and cutting down the amount for sale, ho 
pleaded that there were fifty trades in which the same thing was done. He had 
a list of them to show to the committee. He said: 

" Every pound of rope we buy for our vessels or for our mines is bought 
at a price fixed by a committee of the rope manufacturers of the United States. 
Every keg of nails, every paper of tacks, all our screws and wrenches and 
hinges, the boiler flues for our locomotives, are never bought except at the 
price fixed by the representatives of the mills that manufacture them. Iron 
beams for your houses or your bridges can be had only at the prices agreed up- 



EFFECT OF P&OTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 209 

and electricity, the division of labor in factories, have, 
collectively, rendered the concentration of capital a 
necessity, and, as long as capital is thus legitimately 
employed, its concentration is beneficial, rather than 
injurious to the general welfare of the country. 

The injury inflicted upon the community is not in the 
use but in the abuse of great wealth, which is the same 
as any other abuse, a subject for judiciary or legislative 
interference. 

The building of our railroads required the concen- 
tration of capital, but that the country in general has 
been immensely benefited by the change from the stage- 
coach and cart to the passenger and freight car, will 
hardly be questioned. If, however, the managers of 
these railroads abuse their trust by stock-watering, to the 
detriment of the original shareholders ; violate t-heir 
duties as common carriers (for which they obtained their 
franchises), by organizing pools with competing lines to 
extort unreasonable charges; discriminate between ship- 
on by a combination of those who produce them. Fire-brick, gas-pipe, terra- 
cotta pipe for drainage, every keg of powder we buy to blast coal, are pur- 
chased under the same arrangement. Every pane of window glass in this house 
was bought at a scale of prices established exactly in the same manner. White 
lead, galvanized sheet iron, hose and belting and files are bought and sold at a 
rate determined in the same way.— Henry D. Lloyd, North American Review 
June, 1886. 

In some instances values are being artificial ly staved by the " trusts " that 
are springing up everywhere, but where the law of competition are allowed to 
work out their legitimate results, prices are weakening. Railroad-building has 
been greatly overdone, and so have many branches of manufacturing, and steel 
rails are again lower, as the result of overproduction. Meanwhile, the work of 
consolidation into trusts and Jay Gould schemes goes forward, and the tele- 
graph lines are all being merged into the Western Union. The coal men have 
squeezed 25 cents more on every ton of anthracite, and even the Chicago milk- 
men have formed a "trust." Sugar refiners have consolidated into a " trust" 
and the first-fruits are seen in an advance in that saccharine article. The farm- 
ers are about the only people who are neglecting to form " trusts," and they are 
consequently selling their wheat and corn at very moderate profits.— Market 
report, Chicago Times, Oct. 18, 1887, 



210 THE PROTECTIVE TABIFF. 

pers, and form combinations with powerful monopolies 
for lower rates, or the exclusive transportation of their 
products to uphold and rob the great public ; in this case 
the capital invested has been diverted from its original 
design. And here again the government is responsible 
for the injury, if it fails, by adequate legislation, to pro- 
tect the private rights of the citizen. 

What has been said of the benefits accruing to the 
general public by the concentration of capital for railroad 
purposes, holds good when applied to our manufacturing 
and mining industries. As a rule, capital is exceedingly 
cautious and unless a new enterprise promises profitable 
returns, it does not concentrate to an alarming extent, 
and as long as individual enterprise is permitted to have 
fair play and competition to have full sway, the concen- 
tration of capital in any branch of industry can work no 
possible injury to the public. But when, as has been 
said before, government steps in and presumes to manage, 
regulate and protect certain branches of industry, it does 
so with the tacit understanding that the capital invested 
in such industry shall have the monopoly ©f the home 
market to the extent of the obstruction which bars out 
foreign competition, and in some of the most important 
branches it is left to the caprice of those engaged in 
those industries to make this monopoly absolute. 

It is, for instance, manifest that the placing of a pro- 
tective tariff upon coal, or upon mineral of any descrip- 
tion, is paramount to the creation of a monopoly, since 
the extent of these gifts of nature is limited and may 
be absorbed or controlled by a few. 

The magnitude and exclusiveness of this class of 
monopolies is, in the absence of foreign competition, only 
a matter of capital available and of greater or less unscru- 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION OK MANUFACTURERS. 211 

pulousness on the part of the operators to concentrate 
these natural gifts in the hands of a limited number of 
individuals or corporators. 

The coal monopoly of Pennsylvania and Ohio is a case 
in point. Almost every acre of the extensive coal lands 
of these states has passed from private parties into the 
hands of a powerful and unscrupulous syndicate.* The 
richness of these mines exceed those in England a thousand 
times, and, while in the latter country the " black diamond " 
is only found at great depths, here it is found almost on 
the surface of the earth. The cost of mining coal is about 
sixty cents per ton, or less than the amount of the tax 

* Last July Messrs. Vanderbilt, Sloan, and one or two others out of several 
hundred owners of coal lands and coal railroads, met in the pleasant shadows 
of Saratoga to make " a binding* arrangement for the control of the coal trade." 
'"Binding arrangement," the sensitive coal presidents say, they prefer to the word 
•'combination.'" The gratuitous warmth of summer suggested to these men 
the need the public would have of artificial heat, at artificial prices, the coming 
winter. It was agreed to fix prices, and to prevent the production of too much 
of the raw material of warmth, by suspensions of mining. In anticipation of 
the arrival of the cold wave from Manitoba, a cold wave was sent out all over 
the United States, from their parlors in New York, in an order for half-time 
work by the miners during the first three months of this year, and for an 
increase of prices. These are the means this combination uses to keep down 
wages— the price of men, and keep up the price of coal — the wages of capital. 
Prices of coal in the West are fixed by the Western Anthracite Coal Association, 
controlled entirely by the large railroads and mine-owners of Pennsylvania. 
This association regulates the price west of Buffalo and Pittsburgh and in 
Canada. Our annual consumption of anthracite is now between 31,000,000 and 
32,000,000 tons. The West takes between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 tons. The com- 
panies which compose the combination mine, transport, and sell their own 
coal. They are obliterating other mine-owners and the retailer. The Chicago 
and New York dealer has almost nothing to say about what he shall pay or 
what he shall charge, or what his profits shall be. The great companies do not 
let the little man make too much. Year by year the coal retailers are sinking 
into the status of mere agents of the combination, with as little freedom as the 
consumer. 

The total amount of anthracite coal land is estimated by President Gowen, 
of the Reading, to be between 260,000 and 270,000 acres. Of this the Reading 
Coal and Iron Company owns 95,000 acres, and also holds under a lease of the 
Central Railroad of New Jersey about 14,000 acres, making in the neighborhood 
of 110,000 acres. The Lehigh Valley Railroad controls about 25,000 acres ; the 
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western about 20,000 ; the Delaware and Huclson 



212 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

upon foreign coal, and it can be delivered at a fair profit 
in New York at $3.50 per ton and at $4 in Chicago. But 
this greedy syndicate is not satisfied with a fair profit ; 
it ^counts its profits only. This is the way they do it. 
Three or four gentlemen, quietly sipping a glass of 
champaign and smoking their ITavanas, may be found 
yearly either at Saratoga, N". T., or in one of Delmonico's 
private cabinets, discussing the situation of the coal 
market. They are not there for the purpose of ascer- 
taining how an abundance of fuel at a reasonable price 
can be secured for the country ; it is not for this they have 
met. The very thought of plenty and cheapness is repug- 

about 20,000 ; the Pennsylvania Coal Company 8,000 to 10,000. and the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad 5,000 to 10,000. The rest of the coal lands is held by individuals, 
firms and corporations, and is " necessarily tributary " to the railroad lines of 
the companies above named, with all that that implies. The capitalization of 
the coal companies with that of their satellites is upward of $500,000,000. This 
capitalization was declared by the New York legislative committee to be excess- 
ive. Mr. James B. Hodgskin explained, some years ago, in The Nation, how 
this inflation was brought about. A generation since, the most important coal 
lands were covered by the prettiest farms and the wildest mountain forests in 
the United States, then worth fifty cents to fifty dollars an acre. They were 
bought up by speculators who sold them to the companies at ten to twenty 
times the real cost. When railroads were found to be necessary for the develop- 
ment of the mines, railroad schemes were taken in hand by the same class of 
men, who had acquired experience, skill and money by their manipulation of 
the mining companies, and similar tactics were employed to make money cut 
of the new roads. Roads were built costing but one-half or three-quarters of 
the first mortgage bonds issued on them, and were then saddled with additional 
stock capital equal to the bonds, making the nominal capital of the roads three 
or four times the real cost. Of course, the road was expected to earn dividends 
on the $25 of real cost as well as the $75 of fictitious cost. The swollen total at 
which the capitalization of the coal companies now stands was obtained by 
adding the dropsical mining stocks to the dropsical railroad stocks. This is one 
of the cases in which like has not cured like. 

One of the sights which this coal side of our civilization has to show is the 
presence of herds of little children of all ages, from six years upward, at work 
in the coal breakers, toiling in dirt, and air thick with carbon dust, from dawn 
to dark, of every day in the week except Sunday. These coal breakers are the 
only schools they know. A letter from the coal regions in the Philadelphia 
Press declares that "there are no schools in the world where more evil is learned 
or more innocence destroyed than in the breakers. It is shocking to watch the 
vile practices indulged in by these children, to hear the frightful oaths they 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 213 

nant to them. It is through scarcity and high prices 
that they expect to reap a bounteous harvest. The ques- 
tion with those gentlemen is only : " What is the total 
sum we can safely extort from the public the coming 
year — how much of this sort of robbery will the patient 
people stand ? " The fact that a hundred thousand miners, 
the bread for their families, is dependent upon their deci- 
sion, that hundreds of thousands of families all through 
the country will suffer for the want of fuel during a pro- 
longed winter does not enter into their computations for 
an instant. At the adjournment of the trio, the ukase is 
sent forth that so many tons of coal, and no more, shall 
be mined the coming season, the price being left for con- 
sideration at a future meeting. 

In view of what is now taking place in this country it 

use, to see their total disregard for religion and humanity." In the upper part 
of Luzerne county, out of 22,000 inhabitants 3,000 are children between six and 
fifteen years of age, at work in this way. " There is always a restlessness among 
the miners," an officer of one of the New York companies said, "when we are 
working them on half time." The latest news from the region of the coal com- 
bination is that the miners are so dissatisfied with the condition in which they 
are kept, by the suspension of work and the importation of competing Hun- 
garian laborers in droves, that they are forming a comhi nation of their own, a 
revival of the old Miners' and Laborers' Association, which was broken up by 
the labor troubles of 1874 and 1875. 

Combination is busy in those soft-coal districts, whose production is so 
large that it must be sent to competitive markets. A pool has just been formed 
covering the annual product of 6,000,000 tons of the mines of Ohio. Indiana and 
Illinois are to be brought in, and it is planned to extend it to all the bituminous 
coal districts that compete with each other. The appearanc e c-f Mr. Yanderbilt, 
last December, in the Clearfield district of Pennsylvania, at the head of a com- 
pany capitalized for $5,000,000, was the first entry of a metropolitan mind into 
this field. Mr. Vanderbilt's role is to be that of producer, carrier, dealer and 
consumer, all in one. Until he came, the district was occupied by a number of 
small companies and small operators, as used to be the case in the anthracite 
field in the old days. But the man who works himself, with his sons, in a small 
mine, cutting perhaps from twenty to forty tons a day, cannot expect to survive 
the approach of the Manhattan capitalist. The small Clearfield producers, look- 
ing at the fate of their kind in the anthracite country, greeted Mr. Vanderbilt's 
arrival with the question : " What is to become of us ? " " If the small operator," 
said one of the great man's lieutenants, "goes to the wall, that is his misfortune, 
not our fault." — Henry D. Lloyd, North American Review, June, 1886. 



214 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

is not too much to say, that a great mistake was com- 
mitted by the " Fathers " in allowing coal, mineral and 
salt lands to pass into individual ownership, instead of 
reserving it to the government, the latter charging a mere 
nominal royalty for development. But for the govern- 
ment to confer upon the fortunate owners of coal lands the 
additional prerogative for exclusively supplying the'country 
with coal, by excluding the foreign article, is more than a 
mistake ; it is a crime ; it is the surrender of a portion of 
the people's earnings into the hands of greedy speculators 
by an arbitrary governmental act. 

The amount of the tax on foreign coal does not as 
materially affect its introduction as does the fact that this 
proscriptive system of production is the accepted policy 
of our government. The seventy-five cents tax serves the 
American coal syndicate just as well as did the tax of 
$1.50. This state of the case was well understood by the 
coal barons when they submitted to the reduction. As 
long as capitalists are aware of the fact that, whenever 
any protected industry is threatened by an " overflow " of 
the cheaper foreign article, all they have to do is to set 
the lobby at Washington to work, they will hardly ven- 
ture their means in the precarious enterprise of developing 
mines in Nova Scotia, or in constructing vessels to trans- 
port the product to the United States. 

By way of illustration ; a few days ago, while visiting 
a gentleman having his office in the First National Bank 
building, by chance we came to speak of the hardships 
entailed upon the public by the coal monopoly. I was 
informed by him that previous to the enactment of the 
duty on coal, he had organized a company in Boston for 
the development of a coal mine in Nova Scotia, and the 
enterprise had succeeded so well they were able to deliver 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 215 

excellent coal in Boston at $4.25, with a profit of $1 per 
ton. It was the intention of the company to enlarge 
their facilities with the prospect of eventually supplying 
not only Boston with coal, but many of the manufactur- 
ing centres of New England, also. These fine prospects 
came to naught on account of the act of Congress which 
placed a protective duty upon foreign coal. The company 
was forced into bankruptcy and entailed upon my friend 
a loss of $10,000, his whole fortune. 

This pernicious effect of the tax on foreign coal is the 
effect of every tax levied upon any other mineral, and 
upon many of the raw materials used in the early stages 
of manufactures, such as iron, copper, zinc, lead, nickel or 
salt, and of wool, lumber, sugar, etc., etc. 

To create these over-reaching monopolies was not prob- 
ably the motive which actuated Congress in affording 
"protection" to the producers of these raw materials ; but 
these monopolies, and trusts, which are a curse to the 
country, are here on that account, nevertheless. 

So for instance, in the case of lumber it was probably 
with the honest intention of encouraging the "infantile" 
lumber industry of Northern "Wisconsin and Michigan, 
and in the hope that their labor might be protected against 
the "pauper labor" of Canada, that a tax of $2 a thous- 
and feet was laid upon Canada lumber. Our lawmakers 
did not intend, possibly, to give to a limited number of 
individuals who were fortunate enough to get possession 
of large tracts of pine land at $1.25 per acre and less, the 
exclusive privilege or monopoly of supplying the great 
Northwest with lumber ; but, whether intentionally or 
unintentionally, Congress did so in fact. Twenty-five years 
of pickings afforded by protection has enabled a compara- 



216 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

tively small number of them to grow enormously rich.* 
But they seem not satisfied with the earth. " The gov- 
ernment protects us " they say, " against foreign interfer- 
ence, and the large profits we have heretofore realized 
must not now be curtailed by any annoying home 
competitors. Let us organize a pool, and fix the price of 
lumber to suit ourselves. We must have no nonsense about 
our yearly dividends. These small-fry operators must 
either come into the combine and agree with us to pluck 
the stupid geese of our Western towns and farms, or be 
crushed out," and so the lumber trust becomes an 
institution of the country 

In a previous chapter it has been shown by Mr. Dean 
how rapidly the owners of pine land in Wisconsin and 
Michigan are creating a gigantic monopoly ; how the price 
of lumber is raised by the artificial rise of the '' stump- 
age ; " but now we have the information that a wealthy 
logging company, with an available capital of from sixty 
to seventy million dollars, is forming a complete ring 
around the pine forests of northern Wisconsin ; that one 
by one the great lumber firms have been compelled to 
enter into the pool to protect their interests, and that the 
few who had the temerity to buck against the pool were 
brought to a realizing sense of their situation, paying 
dearly for their show of independence. 

Again, Congress has placed a duty of twelve cents a 
hundred on imported salt, or about one hundred per cent. 
The president of the Salt Association of Michigan, where 



* Ex-Go v. Alger of Michigan is a great traveler. He rides about the country 
in a private car and seldom spends more than seven days in one place. He makes 
his car his business-office, and does $1,000,000 worth of business in it annually. 
Alger, it is said, has made about $8,000,000 since the war. His lumber interests 
are enormous.— Chicago Tribune, October 27, 1887. 






EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 217 

half the salt used in this country is manufactured, admit- 
ted before the Tariff Commission, that salt is only pro- 
duced in large quantities in ISTew York, Virginia and 
Michigan; that the enormous salt bed in the North 
reached from Canada, under lake Huron into the States ; 
that they were consequently, inexhaustible," " What we 
protest against," continued this salt-lord, "is a removal 
of the duty from salt, because our Canadian neighbors 
have to pay only $1.25 for the labor which costs us $1.75." 
It must be supposed that the commission believed him 
and believed that his solicitude for his laborers alone actuat- 
ed him, for the duty on salt was not removed, and as labor 
in this business is now " protected," the great packing indus- 
tries, the farmers and dairymen and the consumers of salt 
generally, must pay just about twice as much for their salt 
as they would had not the government said to the manu- 
facturers of salt, "go right along and charge any price 
you see fit for your salt." I stand guard between you 
and the fellows in Canada who have the impudence to 
offer salt at a ruinous price to the American people, for 
as long as this people are silly enough to believe that the 
Canadian will work in the salt mines of Canada for $1.25 
while he might just cross the line into Michigan and get 
$1.75, so long they will make no fuss about your extor- 
tionate price on salt. But this government aid notwith- 
standing, the article is in danger of falling in price, on 
account of overproduction in the salt mines of Michigan. 
So the output must be restricted. Thus the demand 
for a trust that will regulate and control the salt produc- 
tion of the country and fix the price. Consequently, a 
short time ago, a meeting was held for this purpose in 
Pittsburgh, the " Protection Hub " of the land, at which 
sixty-three salt firms were represented, and all the pre- 



218 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

liminaries for entering into a gigantic " salt trust " were 
perfected. 

Another case : 

Perhaps we ought to be charitable, and say that it was 
not tKe intention of Congress to create a monopoly by 
raising the duty on steel blooms which are used in the 
manufacture of locomotive tires of driving and car- wheels 
from forty-five to ninety per cent. It has done so, never- 
theless. It did not say to the three principal mills of the 
country, the agent of which lobby ed at Washington for the 
increase, we will lay this duty to give you the exclusive 
privilege of supplying all the railroad companies of the 
United States with the products of your mills ; but that 
was the effect, for, as soon as the duty had been raised, 
the combination, being the strongest, drove every other 
competitor out of the business (a Chicago firm sharing 
that fate), raised the price of their steel tires to an extor- 
tionate rate, and as completely monopolize the American 
market to-day as if an expressly stipulated grant had been 
voted them by the United States Congress. Blunders of 
similar cases might be cited but for the purpose of illus- 
tration these are sufficient. 

This is the way our manufacturers and mine-owners 
propose to obviate the difficulties and embarrassments 
resulting from home competition. Every industry worth 
mentioning has been or is being formed into a monopoly 
under the seemingly innocent title of " National Associa- 
tion of So-and-So ; " and every recalcitrant manufacturer 
who refuses to enter the compact for robbing the public, 
and to pay his pool money, is boycotted, until he is either 
ruined or brought into submission. 

This more recent and most absolute system of mono- 
poly is known under the designation of " trust." 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 219 

A trust is organized by the election of a number of 
trustees to whom the property, the machinery, stock, in 
fact, the whole business of every individual manufact- 
urer in a certain line of products, is transferred at an 
appraised value. In pay for his business, the individual 
manufacturer receives t a given number of shares and a 
certain amount in cash. If it is desirable to lessen pro- 
duction, one or more of such establishments are clo^d up, 
but if kept running, the former proprietor may remain 
the manager at a salary fixed and paid by the trust. 
The most recent combination of this kind, and one 
threatens to prove the last straw on the protection-cam- 
el's back, is the sugar trust.* 



* There is no longer much doubt regarding the Sugar Trust, which has been 
receiving so much attention of late, not only by the trade, but by consumers as 
well, the latter being interested to the extent of probably $10,000,000 per annum, 
which this new organization will probably take out of their pockets. The Sugar 
Trust is now organized, with Mr. H. O. Havemeyer, of Messrs. Havemeyer & 
Elder, as president, and Mr. John E. Searles Jr., of the Havemeyer Sugar Refin- 
ing Company, as secretary-treasurer, and the efforts of the trust are now being 
centered in ascertaining the exact status of each refinery in the new stock con- 
cern. It is said that three refineries in New York have either closed to take 
account of stock or are working out their surplus ; and other refineries, both in 
New Fork and Boston, will follow suit. The three refineries in New Orleans, 
one in Portland, and the St. Louis refinery have joined the combination, and 
San Francisco refiners are said to be disposed to do likewise if the eastern refin- 
eries deem it advisable to admit them. From latest advices it is learned that 
the only refineries now holding out are the two refineries in Philadelphia and 
one in Boston. 

From private advices received in this city Saturday morning it is learned, 
that, " in addition to about $15,000,000 represented in the 4 plants ' of the refin- 
eries, about $6,000,000 of cash is contributed by the different refineries, and the 
whole consolidated into a 'trust 1 of say $50,000,00 » to $60,000,000, or possibly 
larger, say at the rate of three shares for one. Of course the 4 trust' will prove 
money-making from the start, and the country seems to already understand 
this, and is disposed to lay in a good supply of refined, having a guarantee 
against loss by reason of the absence of violent fluctuations in prices, which are 
now a thing of the past. 

January 1, 1884, granulated sugar opened at 7 13-16 cents, and January 25 it 
sold for 7% cents — the highest point of the year. From this point it declined to 
5 Js cents December 31, being the lowest point for the year. January, 1, 1885, 
standard granulated sugar opened at 5 7 3 cents, advanced to Q}£ cents January 



220 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

The sugar consumed in the United States to-day 
amounts to about one million tons annually, nine-tenths 
of which is imported, only one-tenth being produced 
here. Now, in order to protect this one-tenth, that is, to 
furnish our sugar-planters and refiners a premium of 
about $6,000,000 annually, the price of all the sugar 
used is increased proportionately to the American con- 
sumer. However, in the general scramble for the home 
demand, the sugar producers have been cutting each others' 
throats, and this evil they now propose to remedy by com- 
bining the sugar industries of the country into a trust. 

26, declined in April to 5 15-16 cents, and advanced in May to 6% cents, reaching 
the highest point of the year in September, which was 7Ys cents, and closed at 
the end of the year at 6 13-16 cents. January 1, 1887, the market closed at 6 13- 
16 cents and reached the highest point April 23, when it touched 7}4 cents. This 
was on account of the strikes in the large refineries in the East. 

The average bond price of fair refining sugar in the United States for forty 
years is 4 79-100 cents, the lowest price to January 1, 1885, was in 1848, when it 
was 2 87-100 cents ; the lowest price in 1885 was 2 60-100 cents, while to-day's 
price is 3 4-100 cents. A year ago it was 2.73 cents. The quotations for refined 
sugars when exported, less drawbacks, compared with last year at this time, are 
as follows: 

1886 1887 

Cut-loaf, per 100 lbs 3.52(^3.59 4.30® 

Cubes @3.33 @4.42 

Crushed 3.52@3.59 4.30@ 

Powdered 3.33@3.66 4.42@ 

Granulated @3.08 4.05@ 

There is no further room for doubt about an advance in the sugar market, 
and it is not unlikely that a very considerable advance will take place within 
the coming year. 

Of course it has been questioned as to what the result of this Sugar Trust 
will be, and men in the trade who are supposed to know something about the 
matter are plied with questions as to what will be the ultimate outcome, but 
the questions are much more easily asked than answered. It would seem as if 
it depended entirely upon what course the trust will pursue in its dealings with 
the consumer. Some believe that great caution 'will be exercised in not exact- 
ing too much, others are emphatic in their belief that all the money that can be 
squeezed out of the consumer will be scooped in by the monopoly, and that 
$10,000,000 will not be an over-estimate of the additional amount which the con- 
sumers of the country will have to pay for their sugar during the coming year, 
which amount represents the extra amount which the refiners will make.— Chi- 
cago Tribune, October 23, 1887. 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 221 

Other combinations of a similar character are, the 
Standard Oil Company, the Cotton-seed Oil Trust and 
the Gas Trust, and although these latter monopolies 
are not the direct outcome of the protective system, 
they are the logical result of our governmental policy. 
All these combinations have one common object, and they 
must stand or fall together. They compel the American 
people to pay from fifty to one hundred and fifty per 
cent more for the articles of daily necessity than they 
would if competition had not been throttled by the 
United States government. 

The evil spirit which keeps watch that no harm may 
come to what they are pleased to call the "American 
System " is the iron king of Pennsylvania. 

Twenty-five years ago, cotton was considered by far 
the most important staple product of the country, not so 
much from a pecuniary point of view as owing to the 
tremendous influence the cotton planters then wielded in 
the legislation of the countrv. But the war came, and 
with it the abolition of slavery, which dethroned King 
Cotton. Royalty in American product, however, was 
maintained and its scepter was transferred into other and 
more exacting hands — the hands of the Pennsylvania 
iron-masters. Iron, to-day, is an infinitely more powerful 
king than cotton ever was, and the iron grip his metallic 
majesty has upon the millions of white slaves of this vast 
domain, as well as upon the majority of the members of 
the United States Congress, may cause the country as 
much suffering as the grip of King Cotton caused it. He 
holds the key to the situation, manipulating without let 
or hindrance the taxing powers of the federal government 
in his own, and in the interest of his allies. His will is 
the supreme law of the land, so far as matters remotely 



222 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

connected with tariff legislation are concerned, and no 
reduction of duties on imports of any- kind, however dis- 
tant from the iron interests can be had, without his consent. 

His royal majesty has a well-organized corps of janis- 
saries, who are watching along the line of his protected 
underlings, giving alarm at the slightest break, levying 
tribute from all, for the support of his iron throne. 

This organization and its workings were fully described 
a few months ago by the Detroit News: 

u The American Iron and Steel Association is a power- 
ful organization, composed of the iron and steel manu- 
facturers of the United States, bound together by the 
strongest ties of self-interest. Its organization is thorough. 
It is directed by shrewd leaders, it is never in need of 
funds, and when it has an object to attain it moves for- 
ward like a well-drilled and well equipped army. Its 
headquarters are at Philadelphia, where its organ, the 
Bulletin, is edited by James M. Swank, a statistical expert, 
who can manipulate figures to the demonstration of any 
problem in finance or political economy — at least to the 
satisfaction of the members of the association. 

" The chief object of this banding together of manu- 
facturers is not the maintenance of established prices, the 
collection of information about the business in which they 
are engaged, etc., as might naturally be supposed. These 
things are but incidental, and are of minor consequence. 
The purpose toward which the association bends its 
greatest efforts is fehe continuance of the iniquity of the 
protective tariff tax. Without this special privilege, the 
iron and steel industries would be compelled to stand upon 
their own merits, as do other kinds of business which are 
less favored, and which are unshielded from competition 
by an impregnable wall of high tariff tax. In order to 



EFFECT OE PROTECTION ON MANUFACTURERS. 223 

combat a growing public sentiment against this outrageous 
injustice which taxes the people for the benefit of special 
interests, a large amount of money must be spent, and 
the beneficiaries of the system uncomplainingly contribute 
to it with a lavish hand, for they know that they will get 
it back a hundred fold. There are pamphlets to be pub- 
lished, newspaper organs to be maintained, lecturers to be 
employed and liberal contributions to be made to the 
campaign fund of congressional candidates who are 
opposed by men who would strike down this iniquity. 
But the chief field of labor lies at the national capital, 
where experienced lobbyists are maintained at a great 
expense, and where the kind of arguments which they 
commonly use are most effective. This is undoubtedly 
the most expensive field of operation for the American 
Iron and Steel Association, and it is the most generously 
cultivated, because the members well know that it yields 
the most liberal returns. 

" It is interesting to know how the association raises all 
the money it expends every year for the maintenance of 
this special privilege of taxing the people for the benefit 
of those in the iron and steel business — a system which 
has developed " iron kings " and " steel kings," with their 
millions accumulated in a few years, while the poverty- 
stricken toilers in the mills are compelled to work on 
starvation wages. This is explained by a circular which 
lies before us, in the form of an " annual assessment," 
made by the association upon one of its members, a Mich- 
igan iron manufacturing company. The following are 
the rates of the assessment : 

u One-half cent per ton of two thousand pounds on all 
pig iron produced at your works. 

u Three-fourths of one cent per ton of two thousand 



224 THE PKOTECTIVE TABIFF. 

pounds on all rolled or wrought iron produced at your 
works. 

"Two cents per ton of two thousand pounds on all 
crucible steel produced at your works. 

" One cent per ton of two thousand pounds on all blis- 
ter, German and puddled steel produced at your works. 

"Three-fourths of one cent per ton of two thousand 
pounds on all Bessemer steel produced at your works. 

" Three-fourths of one cent per ton of two thousand 
pounds on all Siemens-Martin steel produced at your 
works. 

" One cent per ton of two thousand pounds on all steel 
manipulated at your works. 

" Opposite these separate items are blanks for the dif- 
ferent amounts and the sum total of the ' assessment.' 
When it is considered that the mines and furnaces of 
Michigan alone in one year (1884) produced 2,500,000 tons 
of ore and pig iron, some faint idea may be obtained of 
the total fund which this association secures by means of 
annual assessments, to combat legislations that threaten 
to destroy the special privileges of protection. It will be 
seen that on this basis Michigan must have contributed 
$12,500 of the fund for the year 1884, on its pig iron 
product alone. Add to this the assessments in the various 
classes of steel and rolled and wrought iron, and then re- 
member that the other iron producing and manufacturing 
States are assessed the same, and the reader will have 
some faint idea of the enormous corruption fund which 
is raised every year by this association for the purpose 
of influencing legislation." 

These are rugged facts, calculated to throw a flood of 
light upon the paradox which some people wonder at, 
viz. : Why Congress continues to pour into an already 



EFFECT OF PROTECTION OK MANUFACTURERS. 225 

overflowing treasury the proceeds of an oppressive and 
unnecessary war tax, and why the waves of public senti- 
ment in favor of reform beats ineffectually against the 
doors of legislation. 

And this is the final outcome of a fiscal system of 
which Mr. Blaine, page 212, vol. I, of his Twenty Years 
in Congress, says : 

"Protection, in the perfection of its design, as de- 
scribed by Mr. Hamilton, does not invite competition 
from abroad, but is based on the controlling principle, 
that competition at home will always prevent monopoly 
on the part of the capitalist, assure good wages to the 
laborer ', and defend the consumer against the evil of extor- 
tion?" 



CONCLUSION. 



u "TTT"HE]Sr spoliation has once become the recognized 

VV means of existence of a body of men," says Bas- 
tiat, " united and held by social ties, they soon proceed to 
form a law which sanctions it, and to adopt a system of 
morals which sanctifies it." 

These few words of M. Bastiat fully describe the 
condition of affairs in this country to-day. 

The tendency to organize every branch of industry, 
save that of agriculture, into a controlling pool, trust or 
combination of some sort, for the purpose of destroying 
competition in order to " bull " prices, shows the exist- 
ence of a " body of men whose recognized means of ex- 
istence has become that of spoliation." 

For the last quarter of a century the national legisla- 
ture has lent itself to the framing of laws which have sanc- 
tioned this system, and the American people, by their 
seeming aquiescence, have sanctified it. Protection and 
spoliation are synonomous terms, and monopoly is but 
" protection in the perfection of its design." It is the legal- 
ized process " of taking money out of the pockets of the 
many to put into the pockets of the few," and this pro- 
cess must, with unerring precision, terminate in the inor- 
dinate accumulation of wealth by a favored class, and the 
corresponding impoverishment of other classes. 

The argument of Mr. Atkinson, that machinery, man- 
ufacturing facilities and wages have increased, and the 
profits of manufacturers decreased, and his denial that 



CONCLUSION. 227 

the rich are growing richer, and the poor poorer, does not 
dispose of the question. The facts, published in the daily 
press as the}^ transpire, and the proceedings in the courts 
of the country show conclusively that, notwithstanding 
his denials, the rich are growing richer, and the poor are 
growing poorer. In his arguments Mr. Atkinson seems 
to deal with the individual manufacturer whose products 
have fallen in price under the natural law of competi- 
tion. He does not appear to take the circumstance into 
account that competition is almost a thing of the past ; 
that combinations, trusts and monopolies are the rule, and 
free competition the exception. 

Circumstances alter cases. Left each to his own ex- 
ertions, the manufacturers would compete with each 
other for the home market, and, in order to obtain 
a share of it, each (provided he carried on a legitimate 
business), while not selling at a loss, would have to 
content himself with a reasonable profit. But by com- 
bining into a trust, the foreign article being excluded 
under the tariff, the American consumer is placed at the 
mercy of the manufacturers who raise the price of the 
home product at will. 

Do not the sugar kings, whose yearly exactions have 
been estimated at $10,000,000, grow richer by this oper- 
ation, and the consumers grow correspondingly poorer ? 

Or, if a combination of coal barons and railroad mag- 
nates can compel me to pay $2 per ton more for coal 
than I ought to pay but for such a combination, am I 
not by that operation made $2 poorer, and have not these 
unscrupulous operators grown correspondingly richer ? 

Suppose this process of extortion is repeated upon 
every article of household and wearing apparel purchased 
for myself and family, and this sum is multiplied ten 



228 THE PROTECTIVE TABIFF. 

million times (which very nearly constitutes the number 
of families in the country), do not these aggregate exac- 
tions, variously estimated at from $600,000,000 to $800,- 
000,000 annually, ruthlessly taken from the pockets of 
these ten milllion householders and put into the pockets 
of a few thousand mine-owners, manufacturers and rail- 
road magnates, this much enrich the latter (allowing for 
loss in the shuffle) and impoverish the former? If this 
pumping process is allowed to be continued indefinitely, 
it will require no Adam Smith to figure the outcome, 
and the most elaborate disquisition about the " wage 
fund," or hair-splitting arguments on " the distribution of 
wealth," can explain away the fact that the rich monop- 
olists have grown richer and their victims have grown 
poorer. 

Of course, this matter of poverty is relative. A man 
need not necessarily be a beggar, or be really destitute to 
be poor. In this country all consider themselves poor 
who cannot clothe and house themselves respectably, pro- 
cure enough wholesome food to eat, and cannot give their 
children a common-school education. Millions of the 
American people would be able to stand this constant 
strain upon their resources and not feel perceptibly poorer, 
but these extortions of forty cents on every dollar's pur- 
chase seriously affect millions less fortunately situated, 
with but little or no opportunity for recuperation. 

The prevailing discontent among the working-classes, 
more especially in the highly-protected industries, is 
mainly attributable to this cause. It is something more 
than whimsical fault-finding, and the student of political 
economy, or the statesman, who would attempt to explain 
away their grievances or deny their existence, is render- 
ing a questionable service to his country. 



CONCLUSION. 229 

As some writer aptly expresses it : 

u "We are living here under the immutable and inex- 
orable laws of the social organization. We cannot cheat 
these laws, or evade them. If we try to escape their oper- 
ation in one point, they avenge themselves in another. We 
cannot manipulate the law of value, so as to make things 
exchange otherwise than in the ratio of supply and demand, 
without losing more in one way than we gain in another. 
We cannot legalize plunder under any guise whatever, 
without surely wasting wealth and impoverishing robbers 
and robbed together. We cannot arrange any system of 
gambling which will increase wealth, since wealth comes 
only from labor properly applied. We cannot employ 
the taxing power of the government to increase wealth, 
but only to diminish it." 

However, the evils from which we are suffering cannot 
all be attributed to the vicious system of protection, nor 
is it claimed its modification or removal will prove the 
universal remedy. But one thing is certain, that it has 
contributed more to the unequal distribution of wealth, 
to the creation of a state of contention between labor and 
capital, than all the other causes combined. 

The beneficiaries of the protective system should 
remember that sooner or later "murder will out;" that 
the principles underlying this government have not yet 
been suppressed in the hearts of the American people ; that 
they will still insist upon the old-fashioned doctrine, " the 
interests of the few must be subservient to the interests of 
the many," and the enforcement of this doctrine by 
legal enactments must at no distant day be had. How 
conservative or how radical these changes shall be will 
depend upon the amount of resistance to be overcome. 

A removal of the taxes on raw materials, and a cor- 



230 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

responding lowering of the taxes on the finished product, 
would doubtless satisfy the American people to-day, while 
a prolonged struggle, or an attempt to cheat them by a 
repeal of interna! taxes on luxuries, such as on whisky and 
tobacco, might so exasperate them, as to cause them to 
demand the removal of every protective feature on the 
statute books. 

The American consumer must steadily keep in mind the 
admonition of a friend of the people, who has said "that 
it ought to be utterly indifferent to the man who has to pay 
the money for the higher priced article, on account of 
the protective system, what argument, what pretext, 
what name, sacred or profane, they (the protectionists) 
may make to give gravity to the steal. If they are poet- 
ical, let him think of the 'Kule of Three.' If they 
quote Scripture, let him take care of his pockets, and if 
they make promises of the home-market, let him reply 
that one bird in the hand is better than a dozen in the 
bush. If they make promises of high wages, let him give 
the answer, that cheap rent, cheap capital, and cheap 
labor is their motto. His money which he has -earned at 
hard work is at stake ; therefore, let him keep a clear head 
and a cool eye, — let him beware of quack doctors who 
make long speeches ; they will ravish him if they get him 
in their nets. Believe nobody, nothing — except that 
two and two are four. 

" If an angel or an archbishop preaches anything to the 
contrary, give them no heed. 

" If judges on the bench contradict it, let him tell them 
they sit there to administer the law and not arithmetic. 
He has money, and therefore everybody is in a plot 
against him. There is something in his pockets, and he 
will be beset right and left till they are cleaned out." 



CONCLUSION. 231 

This unique piece of advice, like the rules of the Vicar 
of Wakefield, deserves to be framed and placed over the 
mantelpiece of every farmer and workingman in the land. 

Had they followed the first principle of this advice, 
keeping their hands upon their pockets, as well as their 
bosses have done, they would not for years have been, 
with a prospect of continuing to be, the under dog in the 
struggle. 

Under the deceptive and fraudulent pretext of protec- 
tion to American labor, the privileged classes have suc- 
ceeded in persuading a majority of the workingmen and 
farmers that the system under which they are slowly being 
ground to dust is a blessing in disguise, and that highly 
taxed commodities will inevitably lead to general pros- 
perity; it is, therefore, to this want of information upon 
these vital questions that they must ascribe the largest 
share of their troubles. 

As stated at the beginning of this volume, the only 
protection the government of the United States can legally 
bestow upon any of its citizens is police protection. 

But instead of thus confining itself to its duty of pro- 
tecting the rights of the citizen from the encroachment of 
others, the government has drifted into a system of pater- 
nalism, which is constantly devising means for the destruc- 
tion of these rights, and which is the special guardian and 
advocate of a preferred class. 

In violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitu- 
tion, innumerable special laws have been enacted for the 
avowed purpose of affording valuable privileges to private 
individuals and corporations at the expense and to the 
detriment of all the rest. 

The welfare of the individual, however humble, can- 
not be injured without detriment to the whole. 



232 THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

" The interests of the nation are identical with the 
interests of the individual. 

"What is the interest of the individual? 

He wants peace. 

He wants security. 

He wants freedom to be his own, to earn his own, to 
hold his own, and to exchange his own surplus, value for 
value, with the positive, well-ascertained surplus of others. 

How can there be peace with everything ordered for 
the purpose of governmental robbery and individual dis- 
honesty ? 

How can he have security, when weakness is the prey 
of strength, poverty of wealth, and honesty of fraud ? 

How can he have the freedom of his own, earn his 
own, hold his own, and exchange his own, when the gov- 
ernment is uniformly legislating against him, and in the 
interest of a preferred class ? " 



END. 



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